Village of the Damned
by ECDL
Summary: The Rookie nine are assigned a mission to determine the cause of an entire village disappearing. When Naruto's dreams start to reflect actual events what will the outcome be? Rewritten.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Naruto's not mine

* * *

Summary: The three graduating genin teams are assigned a mission to try and solve the disappearance of an entire village. Naruto has been having horrible nightmares for a long time. When his nightmares start to reflect actual events what will the outcome of the mission be?

* * *

Talking

_Thinking_

**Kyuubi Talking**

**_Kyuubi Thinking_**

* * *

All the graduated genin from Naruto's class had been assigned the mission of finding the cause of an entire village's disappearance. Two months ago every single person in the Village of the Moon had gone missing. A month later those who had reported the disappearances were gone as well.

The group had been sent by the Hokage, mainly as an exercise in teamwork. Out of all the teams that had graduated only Kurenai's team worked together effectively, the rest all had problems with their teammates.

On Kakashi's team Sasuke and Sakura hated Naruto, while Naruto hated working with Sasuke. Sasuke also couldn't stand Sakura's fangirl attitude and didn't wish to work with either of his teammates.

On Asuma's team, while Shikamaru was too lazy to argue with Ino, he really hated working with her and often times just slept during practice rather than deal with her. Asuma could see why he did so though, Ino often insulted both boys, calling Shikamaru a lazy ass, and Chouji fat and good for nothing.

The mission was only classified as C-ranked because after searches made by several other teams there was no evidence to suggest what had happened to the villagers. The Hokage had decided that if they took this mission they wouldn't be placed in a great deal of danger because whatever had happened didn't seem likely to happen again with the lack of any evidence around the village.

Kakashi had been designated the leader for the entire group and was in the lead with his team walking alongside him. Team Eight was next, followed by Team Ten.

"We'll have all the teams, except Naruto, scout the village perimeter on the first day and then we'll venture into the village after that if we find nothing" Kakashi explained as they neared the village.

"But Kakashi-sensei why not Naruto?" Sakura asked in confusion, asking the question some of the others had.

"Have you looked at him?" Kakashi asked in response. Sakura turned to her normally shouting teammate who was walking along tiredly, barely awake and nearly running into things as he walked. He had dark rings under his eyes.

"Naruto" Sakura called to him. He blinked sleepily and looked at her, giving a wide grin.

"What Sakura…" he asked, yawned widely, and added "chan?"

"You idiot, you shouldn't be so tired on a mission. You're going to get us all killed" she shouted at him. Naruto frowned and shook his head, "I'm just fine Sakura-chan. I'm only a little tired, don't worry" he told her.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "So you're just trying to get out of watch then and make me and Sasuke-kun do all the work" she concluded, ignoring Kakashi's slightly irritated expression. He would be taking watch as well after all.

Naruto shook his head again, "No, I'm going to do watch with you" he insisted. "Sakura, focus on our surroundings and don't shout" Kakashi warned. She moved her attention off Naruto with a roll of her eyes, muttering something about good for nothing teammates.

The rest of the group was watching Naruto now in confusion, one because he hadn't defended himself, and two because they could see he was definitely more than just a little tired. When they looked away after a while Naruto allowed his features to reflect his tired state. Though being on a mission normally would make him excited this one would probably be one of his worst experiences with how tired he was.

They stopped for a rest break a little while later. Naruto sat down and waited for the group to start out again, not allowing himself to sleep.

When he'd told Sakura he was tired he'd meant exhausted. He'd gotten no sleep for a while, more than a few days and wouldn't allow himself to, especially on a mission. For the past two months Naruto had been plagued with nightmares.

It had been ever since the Wave mission, though Naruto didn't know why they had started and was unsure if it was just stress from his first higher ranked mission or not.

He didn't want the others to see him as weak so he ate soldier pills to get enough energy to fool them after he'd gone three nights without sleep when the nightmares had first begun. It seemed to him that they weren't working very well anymore.

He was aware of his female teammate arguing with Ino over Sasuke while Shikamaru was staring at the sky and Chouji was eating chips. Sasuke was sitting coolly on a rock. Kiba was annoying all the sensei while Akamaru gave half-hearted reprimands to his partner, and Shino was sitting there quietly, watching everyone. Hinata was nervously watching Naruto, a worried look instead of the usual blush that she had around her crush.

The road they were traveling was completely empty, and usually didn't have any foot traffic besides salesman from the Village of the Blood Moon and once in a while a ninja or two from another village on rare occasions. The road there was more of a path worn into the grass as people walked it, though not enough to completely forge a walkway.

Ino and Sakura had been complaining the entire trip about how the grasses were irritating their legs as they walked. Naruto would have joined in, but he was too focused on staying awake and putting one foot in front of the other to even pay attention to the small annoyance.

"Time to continue" Kakashi called a little while later when he felt they'd rested long enough and they set off again, reaching the village by nightfall.

The village was like a ghost town. There was no sound coming from the village, save for the wind blowing over the houses. The houses that lined the streets, from what everyone could tell from their vantage point outside the gate, were pretty shabby.

There were probably one hundred houses in the entire village, though the area was large. Initially the thought had been that it had been attacked by ninja trying to expand their village but when nobody claimed it as their own the theory was dismissed.

In addition the land was in a bad location for a village, three days travel from the closest village. It had taken the Konoha group two weeks to arrive at their destination, though granted had the genin not come it would have taken the jounin much less time.

The group looked around their future camp site for signs of anything dangerous before starting to set up their camp.

"We'll be camping here for tonight and I'll keep first watch with Sasuke and Sakura, if all goes well we'll find somewhere inside the village to sleep for the duration of the mission" Kakashi told everyone present as they worked. "Wait, I can keep watch too sensei" Naruto argued, holding back a yawn. Kakashi shook his head, "No you can't Naruto, you're way too tired, get some rest. If you're more rested later then I'll let you take watch with another team" Kakashi told him sternly.

Naruto glanced at his two teammates for support, getting an irritated look and a shrug from Sakura and a smirk from Sasuke, mocking him.

Naruto sighed and set up his sleeping bag for the night before making his way to the fire that Asuma's team had made. Kiba and Shino had gone to do some hunting with Kurenai supervising them. The rest of them sat, most of them talking or joking while they waited for the food.

The campsite was a little off of the pathway leading into the village and was bordered on one side by very tall trees but they still had enough room to set up all their sleeping bags and the campfire.

Kiba and Shino soon returned to the group with several rabbits which were cooked and eaten quickly. "Alright, get some rest everyone, we'll switch in a few hours, Asuma's team first" Kakashi said, sending everyone to get some sleep.

Everyone who wasn't taking watch climbed into their sleeping bags to get some rest, all except for Naruto. He was in his sleeping bag, but feigning sleep and pinching himself every couple minutes to stay awake, not wanting to reach for his soldier pills and get caught by his team. He didn't want to keep being left out and Kakashi would probably get angry at him and not allow him to take watch at all for the rest of the mission.

Naruto tensed when Kakashi passed by his 'sleeping' form, thinking he'd been caught. He relaxed a bit when the man shook Asuma awake for his team's turn on watch.

The next group had been on watch for less than an hour before Shikamaru started speaking. "You know, even if you look like you're sleeping, if you're still exhausted tomorrow you won't get to take watch" Shikamaru pointed out, loud enough for Naruto to hear but quiet enough that none of the genin woke up.

Ino and Chouji looked at their teammate in confusion for a second before Naruto threw off the top of his sleeping bag which he'd been covering his head with to hide the fact that he was faking.

He glared at the lazy nin, "Mind your own business, I'm (yawn) fine, I'll take watch tomorrow definitely" Naruto hissed quietly at Shikamaru in irritation, not wanting to wake the rest of the group either and be pestered more. Shikamaru shook his head, "No, not if you can barely function" Shikamaru argued back reasonably.

"Naruto," Kakashi said quietly from his sleeping bag, sitting up very quietly. Naruto turned and looked at his sensei, half-glaring because he knew he'd be getting lectured. "You need to rest, you'll get yourself hurt on the mission work tomorrow if you don't get some sleep" he told the blonde boy sternly.

Naruto nodded but had no intention of following the orders, lying back down and trying to ignore everyone who was awake and annoying him.

Kakashi shook his head in resignation and lay down to get more sleep. The night was fairly uneventful with the exception of Naruto receiving no sleep and Asuma's team switching with Kurenai's a couple hours later.

Naruto had found a very uncomfortable position to lay in which kept him awake, though he was still so tired he had to keep pinching himself to help his wakefulness.

* * *

This is the rewrite, I realized that I had all the characters in it but barely gave them any parts, which kind of made their presence pointless. I completely cut Gai's team, mainly because I can't really work Gai and Lee into something without making them seem too serious for their characters.

Sorry it's taken so long, but I haven't been able to get on the computer a lot.

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Naruto is still not mine

* * *

Summary: The Rookie Nine are assigned a mission to try and solve the disappearance of an entire village. Naruto has been having horrible nightmares for a long time. When his nightmares start to reflect actual events what will the outcome of the mission be?

* * *

Last Time

_The night was fairly uneventful with the exception of Naruto receiving no sleep and Asuma's team switching with Kurenai's a couple hours later. He'd found a very uncomfortable position to lay in which kept him awake without any problems._

* * *

Talking

_Thinking_

**Kyuubi Talking**

**_Kyuubi Thinking_**

* * *

The next morning came and Naruto still hadn't slept at all.

Kakashi noticed his blonde student still very tired and so when Naruto was rolling up his sleeping bag clumsily, he pulled the boy away from the campsite to speak to him while the others ate breakfast. They all watched from where they sat, most of them discreetly, but some like Ino, Sakura, and Kiba were openly staring.

Naruto allowed it, too tired to fight him. Kakashi stopped when he figured they wouldn't be overheard, deciding Naruto would be more comfortable sharing his problem with just one person rather than everyone. "Naruto, is something bothering you?" Kakashi asked him, something he should have done a while ago, visible eye showing worry.

Naruto shook his head, "No, sorry sensei, I'm just a little tired. I'm fine though" he told the jounin and yawned widely before giving a goofy smile, wanting the jounin to stop questioning him and start the mission so they could get it over and done with and he could go home to try and rest some, even if it meant the nightmares.

Kakashi frowned, "Naruto, you haven't been sleeping and everyone's worried, if you don't sleep you can get injured by a foreign ninja because you aren't alert or you might even get sick" Kakashi told him, giving him another warning.

Naruto shook his head, "I'm fine sensei" he tried to assure the man and decided to end the conversation himself, turning and walking back to the group before Kakashi could say anything more.

He stumbled slightly when he misjudged a step and Kakashi moved forward, catching him. "Naruto?" he said questioningly and Naruto pushed away from him in slight irritation, stumbled again before righting himself He found a spot near the others and sat down tiredly.

Kakashi exchanged looks with a couple of the others and shrugged going back to his seat beside Asuma. He couldn't do anything if Naruto wouldn't tell him what was going on. He also couldn't send him back. They were too far away from Konoha and since he was the mission leader he couldn't go back. He was also responsible for the other two teams with them, and since this was a teamwork mission for all of them it would cut the training time short for the others. Kakashi hoped that since this mission wasn't supposed to be anything too difficult that Naruto would be able to get some rest soon.

Everyone was talking with each other as they ate and packed up, with the exceptions of Sasuke, Shino, Chouji, and Shikamaru. Sasuke thought everyone else was too irritating to speak with. Shino rarely spoke to anyone unless he was spoken too or absolutely had to say something. Chouji usually talked with Shikamaru but Shikamaru was preoccupied with another matter. Shikamaru was watching Naruto discreetly, wondering if it was something that was actually causing his sleep deprivation, rather than Naruto's own attempts to keep himself awake.

Shikamaru was pulled from his thought when Kakashi called for everyone's attention and stood up. "Now that we're done eating we need to pack up camp and make sure that we leave nothing behind. We'll search until noon and meet back here to share our findings and have a small lunch, we'll start searching in the village after that if nothing is found. When we're done we'll meet up somewhere in the village and then decide on sleeping arrangements for tonight" Kakashi instructed everyone.

Naruto finally was able to roll up his sleeping bag, though he'd done a horrible job on it. He got it into his pack but it made the pack look bigger than normal since it wasn't rolled tightly.

When they got started Kurenai's team, and Asuma's team all moved further away to search, Asuma's team bickering all the way. As soon as they were gone Kakashi turned to his tired blonde student and sighed. They were starting at the gate and working their way to the right of the village entrance.

"As much as I think you should stay and rest you're in no condition to defend yourself if someone attacks" Kakashi told Naruto. Naruto nodded and stumbled along behind his team, trying to look around. He was glad they weren't leaving him behind.

Naruto soon couldn't keep up with them though and followed at a long distance behind, not even trying to keep up. The village was bordered by layers of small rocks about the size of Naruto's hand which weren't held in place, and in addition were slightly slippery because they were smooth. Without his normal wakefulness Naruto was having trouble walking on them without slipping or tripping.

Finally he misjudged a step and fell to the ground with a grunt, just missing slamming his head down on one of the rocks near his head. Naruto gritted his teeth as the rocks pressed into his palms. He was glad they were smooth otherwise his hands would have been cut up pretty badly.

The other three heard him and looked back. "Naruto, are you alright?" Kakashi asked, quickly going to see if Naruto was injured.

Naruto didn't respond, just looked at the spot that was familiar to him from somewhere.

'_My dream'_ Naruto thought and started pushing rocks away from a spot just under his face. He was getting strange looks from his team and questions from Sakura and Kakashi about what he was doing but he kept ignoring them in favor of his task. Finally he stopped and stuck his arm down into the slightly deep hole where he'd pulled the rocks from.

His hands wrapped around a small cloth object and he pulled it from the hole. He'd found a very worn ragdoll. The black hair on the doll was nearly gone and the cloth was frayed pretty badly from how often it was played with. It wore a red flowery dress with a small pink ribbon that was barely sewn on. _'Yuri'_ he thought and tightened his hold on the small filthy doll when Kakashi tried to take it from him. "Let me see it please Naruto" Kakashi requested and Naruto frowned before loosening his hold.

Kakashi straightened and looked it over moving back so Naruto could stand up, "Why was that there?" Kakashi wondered aloud. Naruto knew why but said nothing, thinking hard. He pushed himself to his feet slowly and stared at the doll.

"_C'mon honey, run" a woman called to her daughter who had tripped and dropped her toy. The mother had paused in her run and turned, calling to her daughter frantically as the rest of the villagers ran past her in panic. The little girl couldn't reach her toy because it had fallen into a hole in the rocky border. "But mommy, what about Yuri?" the little girl called back urgently, reaching her arm as far down the hole as she could to try and grab her doll. _

"_She'll be fine here, he doesn't want her, just come on" the girl's mother called urgently. The little girl finally nodded, giving up on trying to reach the toy and picking up some of the surrounding rocks. _

"_Hide here until I get back" she ordered the doll and set the rocks over the hole. Then she got up and ran, catching up to her mother as fast as she could._

Kakashi put the doll back down on the ground, "I don't think this can help us, we'll leave it" he told the three, knowing they could come back for it later if it was anything important. He figured some kid had probably lost it and it had gotten buried when the rocks on the bank had shifted some time in the past.

Sasuke started walking again, agreeing that there was nothing special about the object. He was followed by Sakura and Kakashi. Naruto looked at their retreating forms and crouched down, grabbing the doll and stuffing it into his jumpsuit, wanting to figure out why he'd dreamt about something like this, and that it had turned out to be true, hoping the doll had clues. Even if it didn't there was definitely something important about the doll relating to the mission, he figured.

They continued their search for a while longer with no more discoveries. They met up with Asuma and Kurenai's team at the gate at around noon. "We didn't find anything," Asuma reported, slightly irritated, though not with the lack of progress, with his team.

His team had gotten bored with the search and Ino had started complaining loudly about how she was starting to sweat. Chouji had also started complaining that he was hungry. Shikamaru had been content to continue, or stop, whichever his team wanted. Asuma had made them continue but after twenty minutes of Ino's nagging they'd stopped to take a pretty long break, when they'd started again it was at a very slow pace, even so they finished their part.

"We didn't find anything either, as far as I can tell there isn't a genjutsu placed, and there are no signs of any sort of struggle, Kiba and Shino both say there's no blood or chakra around. It is sort of difficult to determine everything with the terrain though, the rocks could be covering a lot" Kurenai told everyone.

"We weren't really expecting to find much, we'll probably find more in the village if there's anything to find" Kakashi said and after a quick lunch they all went into the village together since they figured they were done with the perimeter.

Naruto was looking at all the buildings in shock as they walked, nearly bumping into people every few seconds since he wasn't paying attention to where he was walking. He'd seen this, all of this in his dream. When they'd first arrived it was a bit dark out and he'd never seen the village from that perspective, only the interior of it, most likely through the eyes of the villagers. It had really happened. He rested his hand on his jumpsuit above the doll as he thought.

"What do you have with you Uzumaki-san?" Shino questioned, stalling the group's walk. "What do you have?" Shino repeated, "It is agitating my kikai". Naruto reached into his jumpsuit and pulled out the doll, holding it out to the bug user. Shino carefully accepted it; his kikai flowed from his body, buzzing angrily at something nobody else could sense.

"What is it, just a doll?" Ino asked, reaching for it and pulling it out of Shino's hand rudely before he could say anything. "It's not a very cute doll, it's covered in dirt and it's missing a button on the front. It's also almost completely bald" Ino said critically.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes and took it from Ino, "Is it because there's chakra on it?" Shikamaru asked Shino, looking it over critically. That really should have been the only explanation, unless the doll was covered in blood, which would be near impossible to wash out without destroying the doll completely.

Shino frowned before shrugging, "It may be, I have never encountered chakra such as this before, it is stranger than Uzumaki-san's chakra" he informed the Nara after a bit of thought.

Shikamaru nodded in understanding and looked over it for a moment before making up his mind. "Well, if it is chakra then it probably has an illusion over it" he decided and handed it to Kurenai so she could inspect it. Kurenai knelt down and set the doll on the ground before trying several techniques to dispel the chakra, to no avail. "I don't think it is chakra" Kurenai finally said after her last method failed to reveal anything.

"Then what exactly can it be, if his kikai are reacting then it must be something, I doubt it's a smell or Kiba and Akamaru would have mentioned it" Asuma said reasonably. The group turned to Kiba and he shook his head, "We don't smell anything from it, maybe it has some sort of plant on it that we can't detect but kikai can?" he offered in explanation, though it was more of a question. Akamaru barked his agreement with his partner.

"How about a byakugan's perspective" Kiba said, taking the doll from Kurenai and tossing it to Hinata. Hinata caught it and the next second jerked her hands away, sending the doll to the ground. She backed from it and rubbed her hands as if she'd been burned. "Hinata?" Kurenai asked in confusion and alarm, moving quickly to her student and taking the girl's hands to see if something had happened. Before she could do anything Hinata started screaming loudly, jerking her hands away from Kurenai and shielding herself protectively as if expecting an attack.

Everyone exchanged startled glances and Kurenai attempted to dispel whatever was attacking Hinata with no results. "Hinata, what's happening?" she called over the screams, once again trying to reach her student. Hinata just shook her head, tears beginning to fall down her face, making Kurenai gasp and she was finally able to get to Hinata. "She's bleeding," she told. These were tears of blood.

"So is the doll" Sasuke said, picking up the thing where it had fallen on the ground, using the edge of his shirt so he wouldn't actually touch it, and getting some of the crimson liquid on him. He was the only one really paying attention to it since everyone else was focused on the Hyuuga heiress.

Hinata was still screaming and crying when darkness formed around the doll, covering it completely and suddenly destroying the image which had been in place. Now the doll had one white eye and a scar over the side where its left eye should have been. Its clothing was now a cloak with tattered edges and its teeth and nails looked razor sharp. This did draw most everyone's attention, though Kurenai, Shino, and Kiba were still focused on trying to help their teammate.

"What?" Sasuke asked, dropping the thing in shock, though it didn't register in his tone or expression. Hinata slowly stopped crying, and the blood had disappeared. "Are you alright Hinata?" Kurenai asked gently, looking at Hinata's eyes to try and determine what had happened to her sole female student. Hinata sniffled and nodded, "I'm okay sensei" she said quietly, though she was shaking heavily and checking herself for injuries that weren't present.

"What happened?" several people asked her. "I don't know, when I touched it I felt like I was running from something and then I got caught and it started to pull the skin off of my body, and then it tore out my eyes" she sobbed, breathing heavily, not stuttering because she was too freaked out to worry about her shyness at the moment.

Everyone exchanged glances, "Are you sure it wasn't a genjutsu?" Naruto asked finally and everyone looked at him in time to see him yawn widely. "I would know if it was, I'm a genjutsu specialist" Kurenai said in slight irritation because it sounded like he doubted her abilities.

"Actually that's not entirely accurate, while you could sense that it was like a genjutsu, if it was created with a strong bloodline like the sharingan then you wouldn't be able to break it" Asuma said, taking a seat on the ground.

"I didn't sense it was like a genjutsu, I have no idea what that was. I've never felt anything like what I sensed from that in my entire life" Kurenai corrected him.

"But, what else could it have been? She doesn't even have a mark on her and there's really no other explanation" Shikamaru said logically.

"Right, well, we'll need to leave the doll where it is I'm afraid, we can't…" Kakashi trailed off when Naruto grabbed the doll from the ground and placed it back in his jumpsuit, despite cries from several people, warning him to stop.

"You idiot, put that back down, it's dangerous" Sakura shouted at him, not wanting to hit him because he held the doll and she was worried about getting harmed. Naruto shook his head, "It's okay" he told them. He didn't know why, but he was sure it was safe to handle now. "You don't know that, it attacked Hinata" Kiba snarled. "My kikai sense that nothing is wrong with it now" Shino said in Naruto's defense.

"Plus Naruto was able to hold onto it earlier, and so were all of us. Maybe it only affects Hinata for some reason" Ino suggested.

"That doesn't matter, what if it reactivates and attacks Naruto as well? I think that it should be put back where he found it or left somewhere that we can keep an eye on it without touching it" Asuma said sternly, holding out his hand to take the doll, though he did so warily, not wanting to feel or see the same things Hinata had.

Naruto hesitated before handing it over. "Okay, now this is going to be right here. Nobody touch it" Asuma instructed, setting the doll down against one of the houses in a small patch of weeds growing there.

"We're starting the next part of our search, we need all of you to stick close together if there is a strong genjutsu user fighting us, even if it isn't we have no idea of their abilities. Anything that looks out of the ordinary, like it doesn't belong somewhere like that doll did should be marked and we'll all meet there and check it for any danger, do not touch it" Kakashi ordered everyone.

They all nodded, though Naruto hadn't heard, too tired to listen at the moment. Naruto's team searched the first street in front of the gate. Naruto wasn't any help and just stumbled along after them.

When they met later that night only one group had found something. "Here, it isn't much but it does look out of place" Asuma explained when he brought them to the house where he'd left his team to keep watch. They all froze when they found the three genin unconscious on the floor.

They immediately tried to wake up the students. Shikamaru was the first to wake, quickly followed by the other two. "What happened? I told you not to touch it" Asuma said angry and worried at the same time. "Touch what?" Shikamaru asked, sitting up and rubbing his head from where he bumped it on the floor when he'd fallen. "That gold object" Asuma told him angrily.

The three on Asuma's team exchanged glances, "I don't remember a gold object" Ino said in confusion, earning nods of agreement from her teammates. "It was right here, I told you to keep an eye on it" Asuma said, starting to get more worried. "Well, I don't remember" Chouji said, pulling out a bag of chips and sitting up.

"We'll have to check on that later, whatever it was it's gone now" Kakashi said as Asuma helped Ino to her feet and Shikamaru and Chouji both stood.

"We'll need to check on all of your injuries and make sure that whatever happened won't affect you, and we'll send for back up too, obviously we aren't as safe as we thought" Kakashi said.

They exited the home and finally they were in a nicely furnished home with a lot of space so that they could all fit. This had already been checked by Kakashi's group so they figured that it would be ok for now. They moved the couches and chairs out of the large room and set up their sleeping bags for the night.

After Kakashi summoned a dog and sent it to Konoha requesting back-up they all took seats.

"Here, I brought some ration bars just in case, I figured we won't want to go hunting after all this" Sakura said, pulling out her bag and dumping several ration bars on the ground.

"Good idea Sakura, though we'll definitely need to go hunting tomorrow and find something, I'm not willing to eat anything from inside this village" Kakashi praised.

Sakura smiled and shot a triumphant look to Ino and then turned to bat her eyes at Sasuke. Ino glared at her angrily and Sasuke ignored her completely.

After they'd eaten they tried to get some sleep, leaving Asuma's team as first watch this time.

"Naruto, we're in a really dangerous situation, get some sleep or you'll be in trouble if we're attacked" Asuma said sternly when he sensed Naruto was awake due to the boy's breathing.

Naruto shook his head, lying down and resting a bit with no intention of doing as the jounin requested.

* * *

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine

* * *

_Last time_

_Hinata and Team 10 get attacked with no clues as to who's behind it. Naruto had yet to get any sleep._

_

* * *

_

Talking

_Thinking_

**Kyuubi Talking**

**_Kyuubi Thinking_**

* * *

"_Strange, I didn't have a nightmare last night"_ Naruto thought, and he was extremely glad he'd gotten a bit of sleep. He'd dozed off minutes after speaking with Asuma, even though he hadn't meant to. He sat up and yawned widely. "You're up dobe, hurry up and eat before we leave without you" Sasuke ordered, throwing the last ration bar at his head.

Everyone else had woken up hours before but they hadn't wanted to disturb Naruto since he'd been so tired. While they waited they'd speculated about what sort of abilities the person attacking them had and packed up their stuff so that it wouldn't go missing like Team Ten's find had.

"Back off teme, I needed my sleep" Naruto shouted, barely catching the flying food and eating it quickly. Everyone winced at the volume, "He's feeling better, how troublesome" Shikamaru muttered, though he was relieved they wouldn't get killed due to Naruto's sleep deprivation, though not very relieved because he guessed he'd probably get killed by whoever was targeting them if they couldn't figure it out in time.

As Sasuke had said, they started on their search right away. Kakashi had decided to split up the teams, needing to make sure that there was the right amount of assistance on each team given that each team had a different skill they specialized in.

He placed Ino, Chouji, Hinata, and Asuma as on team. Then he made a team of Sasuke, Kiba, Shikamaru, and Kurenai. The last team was himself, Naruto, Shino, and Sakura. Kakashi only kept Naruto on his team because, even if Naruto said he was rested, he had to make sure he would be okay, especially since Naruto was Kakashi's responsibility as a member of Team Seven.

With that being done they set off in their groups to search, each given a different set of streets to begin with.

* * *

With Asuma's group

Hinata was using her Byakugan to search and finding nothing that could help them with any of their search. They went past house after house quickly using this method. It wasn't long before they'd finished the street they'd been on and moved onto another.

* * *

With Kurenai's Group

They were using Kiba and Akamaru to track scents to determine if there was blood or not. Kurenai was searching for if there was any hidden genjutsu that she might be able to find, knowing the feel of the genjutsu or whatever it had been that had been placed over the doll. Sasuke was using his sharingan to search as well. Shikamaru was also looking, but he wasn't the best at this sort of thing so he wasn't much help to the search process.

* * *

With Kakashi's Group

Shino's kikai were moving in swarms throughout the houses since they knew the feel of whatever had been attached to the doll like Kurenai did, and Kakashi had his sharingan uncovered and was using it similar to the way Sasuke had been.

"This one's empty, come on, let's go to the next" Kakashi finally said in the first house, covering his eye and turning to leave with Shino and Sakura following when they determined there was nothing left to find.

Naruto ignored them and made his way to a room, trying the door which swung open readily with the slightest amount of a push. They hadn't visually checked it because Shino's kikai hadn't found anything after going under the door to explore.

Naruto shivered as the door seemed to be caught by something before it hit the wall and moved back towards him slightly.

He went inside warily and then turned to notice the others weren't following him. "Come on you idiot, we have to hurry and find out what's going on, we don't have time to explore" Sakura shouted at him, running into the room with an irritated look on her face when she saw he wouldn't listen to her. Kakashi and Shino turned to look at the two as well, not noticing Naruto had gone back until Sakura had said something.

The room Naruto had entered was a storage room, there were canned foods stacked on the shelves and bags of what he guessed were flour on the floor. Naruto turned back to her and gave a wide smile, "I'm sorry Sakura-chan, I think we missed something, and I wanted to make sure we didn't" he told her, continuing deeper into the room.

Sakura growled a bit and grabbed onto his arm, "I said we don't have time…" she started but was cut off.

There was the loud slam behind them, causing them both to flinch as the door was forcibly closed. A moment later they heard the pounding of fists on it. "Naruto, Sakura, are you alright?" Kakashi called into the room, not having entered before he'd been locked out. Shino hadn't followed either. Sakura was on the other side, tugging on the handle. "It's stuck sensei" she shouted back, starting to become afraid.

She'd dropped Naruto's arm in her panic and he went further into the room. There was the sound of glass breaking which made Sakura jump. She turned to see Naruto with his leg covered in liquid and one of the canned food jars at his feet.

"Sorry" he said sheepishly, leaning down to shake out his pant leg. "Forget about it, help me get the door open" Sakura ordered, continuing to tug on the handle.

Naruto frowned and was going to walk towards her when something caught his eye and there was a shuffling behind one of the shelves. "Sakura-chan, there's someone here" Naruto told her urgently, fear creeping into his voice. "What? We don't have time for that, I already told you we need to get out of here" she said, ignoring his words and continuing to pull on the handle.

Naruto moved towards the sound, tensed and ready for an attack. He pulled out a kunai to ready himself and quickly moved into the aisle. Naruto sighed in relief when he found nothing there and was about to pocket his kunai and turn to leave when he saw a large white cloth lying on the floor, presumable covering something. Curiosity getting the better of him, he moved until he stood right next to it.

"Naruto" he heard shouted in irritation from Sakura but ignored it, reaching down and pulling on the sheet.

Naruto shouted in surprise, falling onto his butt and moving backwards using his hands to speed him up. The sheet fluttered to the side and landed against one of the sets of shelves.

"Honestly Naruto, what is it now?" Sakura asked, rolling her eyes. She froze when she turned around, seconds before screaming loudly.

"Sakura, what's going on" Kakashi's voice called through the door. Sakura couldn't answer, too afraid to say anything. Though she wasn't attempting to as she stared at what had caught her attention.

What Naruto had uncovered had been a body of a person, that wasn't what had freaked them out though, what scared them was the fact that as soon as Naruto had uncovered it the thing had stood up. Naruto continued to back away and finally hit the wall behind him.

The body, or what was left of it, was completely devoid of skin and the muscles were torn up. Blood dripped from the corpse onto the ground below as it walked towards Naruto slowly.

Naruto thought quickly and threw a kunai at it, hoping to kill it. The weapons went through flesh and came out the back of the corpse, having absolutely no effect at all due to the fact that it was already dead.

_The man/Naruto walked down the stairs and followed the hallway into the storage room filled with canned food. "Jiro, come out" he called. "No, I don't wanna leave" the boy cried and the man/Naruto turned the corner to see a little boy sitting there, "Come on, we have to get out" the man/Naruto said, moving to grab the boy. _

_The man/ Naruto picked him up and held him. "It doesn't matter" the boy said calmly, "It's too late"_

The dream that had suddenly taken over ended at that point and Naruto snapped back into reality. The body was much closer now and reached out a hand to him, "Naruto" Sakura cried, finding her voice. Naruto didn't acknowledge her as he tried to keep backing up, only to find he was as far back as he could go, he'd run into one of the walls.

"Sakura, step away from the door, I'm going to destroy it" Kakashi called through the door. Sakura did as she was told. "Okay sensei" she called back, the body now had Naruto's arm held tightly as he shook and struggled against the hold.

Naruto quelled the urge to scream like a little girl when his struggling did nothing and the body put its mouth next to his ear. "Get out while you still have a chance" it told him, collapsing lifelessly, well more lifeless than it had been before, on top of him.

Naruto looked up just in fear as he struggled to get the body off of him, just in time to see the door be completely destroyed and the lightning encased hand of his sensei coming through it.

"Sensei" Sakura shouted, pointing to where Naruto was urgently, trembling in fear.

Kakashi wasted no time in pulling the corpse off of Naruto. Once it was off Naruto shot to his feet and moved quickly away from it, shaking and trying to get the blood off. "The eyes were taken, and his skin was ripped off" Kakashi said after his inspection of it, not as scared as his two students.

"Like Hinata-san was saying" Shino commented, entering the room. They were unable to tell if the sight of the corpse disgusted him or not due to his emotionless voice and sunglasses hiding his eyes. "Yes, I'm thinking this was one of the villagers. I think that whatever Hinata saw was what happened to the people who went missing" Kakashi stated with a frown.

"So what do we do? It's obvious that someone's targeting us, and they have to be here to be doing all these things, but we haven't seen anyone, can't we just go back to Konoha and have them send someone else?" Sakura asked, pleading for this mission to be over.

Kakashi shook his head, "Of course not Sakura, we'll need to solve it before we can leave, besides, so far we've been fairly safe and we're going to have back-up soon" he said giving an eye smile to try and reassure her. In his mind though he knew that she was right and this would be very difficult for them to solve, especially with an unidentified enemy.

He was right though, when Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji had been unconscious they would have been easy targets. The fact that they were still alive gave him some hope of surviving this ordeal.

Also they had taken two weeks to get there, it would be three or four days before back-up would get there, even if ANBU were sent. In the meantime they needed to get as much work done as possible. They would all stick together so that hopefully none of them would die.

"Explain what happened" Kakashi finally requested, knowing his words weren't calming their fears. Sakura and Naruto started to describe everything.

"Well we'll leave it here for the time being, it's a bad idea to bring it outside" Kakashi said when they were all finished, looking down at the body one last time. "Would it not be wise to keep searching? If we keep searching, then we will certainly find something that we have missed since we could not detect this" Shino said reasonably.

"That's right, we probably will have to go over everything again, but first let's find the other groups, we need to make sure that they do this as well and don't waste time like we've been doing" Kakashi told the boy and they all left to find the others.

* * *

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	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine

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Talking

_Thinking_

**Kyuubi Talking**

**_Kyuubi Thinking_**

* * *

They soon caught up with Asuma's group. "Hey Kakashi, we don't know how the search is going, we haven't found anything at all" Asuma reported when they finally met up with them on the porch of the house Asuma's team had been about to enter. "You might have missed it," Kakashi told him, going on to explain what had happened to Naruto and Sakura.

Ino and Chouji's mouths were wide open in shock and horror and Hinata was shaking, looking at Naruto's blood covered clothing. She'd already been doing pretty badly with what had happened with her earlier, courtesy of the doll, and was extremely jumpy. While both Ino and Chouji were fine with going through the rooms in the house she stuck really close to Asuma as the search progressed.

"Kikai should be able to sense death" Shino added when Kakashi was done explaining, telling them that something else had effected the corpse, making it impossible for him to sense the body at first. His kikai had sensed the dead man only after Sakura had screamed. Even though the corpse had been covered with the sheet the kikai should have still been able to sense it. He'd decided that it must have been a result of whatever the strange chakra had been before.

"So you're saying that we might not have found anything because something's masking it" Asuma summed up. Kakashi nodded, "That's exactly what I'm saying. I hate to say it but we have to restart everything" he said apologetically.

Asuma sighed, pulling out a cigar and starting to smoke. "Alright, back to the beginning you three" he said, leading his group away from the four.

When that was done they went to find Kurenai, delivering the same information to her. When Kakashi was done explaining things the group had paled considerably. "You're sure that there was no way Shino's kikai sensed it" Kurenai asked finally, finding it hard to believe. His kikai had been able to sense the strange chakra on the doll before any of them had. They should have been able to alert them to the presence readily enough.

Kakashi nodded, "For some reason they didn't pick it up" he told his fellow jounin. "My kikai know what death smells like as well, I'm positive there was nothing there to begin with sensei, unless, as we concluded, something was blocking the presence" Shino added firmly.

"What if it wasn't there before" Shikamaru said, earning confused looks from everyone. He sighed, usually Asuma would pick up on what he was saying quickly enough and he didn't have to explain, obviously with this group it was necessary.

"Shino's kikai couldn't sense anything. There's a possibility that it wasn't there in the first place. I'm thinking that maybe it appeared there after you'd checked" Sasuke explained for him, understanding pretty quickly what he was saying.

"But we sensed nobody there, how would it have gotten there if nobody could have placed it?" Sakura asked in confusion. Shikamaru sighed, "I'm just saying it's possible, if there's absolutely no way Shino's bugs sensed it but then were able to suddenly then there has to be a logical explanation" he told her lazily, not wanting to get into an argument, it would be way too troublesome for him.

"Regardless we would have sensed something change when the body appeared, there was nothing to sense" Kakashi added.

Kurenai sighed, "Alright, we'll have to look into that too, but right now we'll finish our house. You should go back to the one you were working on" her group started back towards the house.

"You idiot, get back here" Sakura shouted when she saw Naruto had wandered away. He'd figured the conversation had ended so he wanted to look around this part of the village. "Sorry Sakura-chan, I thought I saw something" he told her, looking back at her for a moment before continuing on his way even though he was expected to go back. He was following a pathway familiar to one of his dreams.

Kurenai's group turned to watch as well and made their way back over to the others, wondering what was going on.

"Let's follow him" Kakashi said with a sigh, knowing they might actually find something but also needing to make sure Naruto wasn't going to get hurt if he wound up alone. Sakura refused to budge, starting to shake in fear. "What?" Kakashi asked in confusion and concern.

"The last time Naruto said he thought he saw something that corpse attacked us" she said fearfully.

"I doubt it's going to be anything like that" Kurenai said, trying to reassure her, hoping she was right because she didn't want to see anything like Kakashi had described either. She'd decided that they could work with Kakashi's team for a moment before continuing on their search. They all started towards the alleyway Naruto had disappeared into.

Shikamaru reached it first and froze, staring into the dead end, "Actually, it is something like that" Shikamaru said, backing away slowly as the others moved around him to get a good look. Some cautiously like Sakura and Kiba, the others quickly, ready to protect Naruto if necessary.

Naruto had turned into the alley next to the house and his dreams chose that moment to take over.

_A man/Naruto was running in fear, breathing hard. He looked back as he heard a loud grating sound and saw a trail of deep indents along the wall as if made by claws, though he saw only a small outline of them as the moonlight shone on them. _

_He sped up. 'Faster' he urged himself, frantically trying to escape. He reached into his pocket as he turned another corner to his left and pulled out a small bundle, tossing it into a trash can before continuing his run. The next turn he made right resulted in his death. It was a dead end and the man/Naruto started to pull on one of the bricks. _

_It shifted slightly and he heard a sound right behind him. He turned around in fear and let out a horrible scream._

Naruto snapped out of it at that moment. He'd reached the scene of the murder and he headed towards the garbage cans, starting to dig through them quickly, looking for whatever the man had thrown away, wondering why he had thrown it away. The others had arrived just as the garbage can began to shake violently.

Naruto started to move back in fear but tripped, falling to the ground. He was caught by the corpse that had been in the garbage can, it tightly grabbed Naruto's wrist and something dug into Naruto skin, making him bite back a yelp of pain. He tried to jerk back but the grip was too strong and the garbage and the body must have weighed enough to keep the garbage can from tipping over.

"Heed the last" a voice issued from the corpse and Naruto could tell it wasn't speaking this time, it wasn't moving its mouth. Naruto struggled to get free, ignoring it in his panic which probably would have made him freeze instead.

Sasuke had thrown a kunai, this one going through the corpse as Naruto's had with the one previous, though it brought the corpse's attention to Sasuke. Sasuke winced as the man turned to him and stared, seeing the man's eyes were missing. "Heed the last" it said again before collapsing.

Naruto started to pry the hand off of his wrist, with no luck. Slowly Sasuke and Kakashi came, freeing him from the thing's hold. When that was done they moved back, panting heavily. Sasuke was trying to calm the tremors he felt and almost succeeding, his hands gave away how freaked out he really was since he couldn't still them completely.

Naruto's attention was focused on his wrist. "Sensei, can you help me get this off?" he requested, tugging on the thing that the corpse had wrapped around it. Pieces of the corpse's hand stuck into whatever it was so he couldn't identify it.

"What is it?" Kakashi asked when he had no luck getting it off either. A moment later water trickled down Naruto's wrist. "This is all the water you're getting from me until we can leave the village and fill our water bottles" Sakura told him, grudgingly helping him clean off his wrist and hand.

"Thanks Sakura-chan" Naruto said happily before turning back to the thing. It was a bracelet from the looks of it. Shikamaru had finally gotten enough courage to come forward, though he was still wary of the body and gave it wide berth. "There're symbols on it" Shikamaru pointed out when he saw it.

"Yeah, can you read them?" Naruto asked, looking up at the lazy genius hopefully. Shikamaru shook his head, "I know I've seen them before, but I don't know what they say" he said apologetically. Naruto sighed in disappointment. "That's alright, I don't think it's coming off" he said in disdain, still tugging on it as hard as he could in hopes it would come off.

"Well, we'll finish our searching together then, and have lunch in an hour" Kakashi decided, trying to remain calm, and get everyone else to be calm too.

"Right, well, we were working on this house" Kiba started, turning to exit the alleyway from the direction they'd come from, only to have Naruto go in a different direction.

"Okay let's follow him then" Kiba said in irritation and Akamaru gave a small growl in agreement because Naruto wasn't listening to them.

Naruto went to his secondary destination, the brick in the wall the man had been trying to pull out. Naruto took hold of the brick the man had been working on and started to dig at it. He cursed himself as his vision started to blur. He was still lacking sleep and it was starting to affect him again.

Naruto continued to scrape at it until Kakashi pulled him aside gently. "I've got it" he assured Naruto and finished getting the brick out the rest of the way with a kunai.

Kakashi looked into the groove that had been made in the brick, leaving it hollow. He found and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Carefully he unfolded it so it wouldn't rip, smoothing it out with one hand while he held the brick in the other.

"What's it say?" Sasuke asked impatiently after a minute without any information being shared.

Kakashi rolled his eyes at the impatience and cleared his throat, "One hundred years ago on the night of the Blood Moon, a great evil fell upon the Village of the Moon. The entire village, but a select few that had been outside the village, were killed. A month later on the Full Moon the survivors were then killed in the same manner. Visitors stopped coming and the village was left inhabited for several decades until travelers, banned from their homes, settled down into the village. They raised their families and soon the village grew to hold the amount that had once lived there. I have been researching the phenomena behind the disappearances and have found very little. One thing's for certain, tonight is the anniversary of the deaths all those years ago, it is also a Blood Moon. I wonder how we will fare as none of the villagers have taken my warning seriously." Kakashi read. "It's dated October 4th 2009" he told them.

"October 5th was when the village was discovered as empty by returning salesmen. The next month they all disappeared as well" Kurenai pointed out. The piece of paper held in Kakashi's hand burst into flames and everyone took a step back.

Shikamaru had been staring at the brick for a while and requested to be able to see it. "Okay, this has some symbols inside it as well" Shikamaru said. "That doesn't mean anything does it?" Kurenai asked in confusion. "It could" Shikamaru replied, taking out a piece of paper and a pencil and drawing them so they didn't have to carry the brick around with them.

"What now?" Sakura asked shakily when he'd finished the sketch. "We find the others, they'll need this information and we should probably have lunch even if it is a bit earlier than planned, we'll need to hunt this time since we don't have any food left. We'll also need to get water" Kakashi ordered them and they set off.

They met up with Asuma's group and after getting something to eat they all started to get up to continue their search.

"Wait, now that we're all together I need to know one thing" Shikamaru said, stopping the group from their exit and staring intently at Naruto, making everyone turn around and shift their gaze between the two boys in confusion. "What?" Naruto asked, slightly creeped out by Shikamaru's stare.

"How did you know all of this stuff? How did you know that there was something in that room, or in the alleyway?" Shikamaru asked. Now everyone was waiting curiously for Naruto's answer, having realized what Shikamaru was getting at.

"I dreamt it" Naruto replied with a shrug.

* * *

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	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine

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_Last Time_

_"How did you know all of this stuff? How did you know that there was something in that room, or in the alleyway?" Shikamaru asked. Now everyone was waiting curiously for Naruto's answer, having realized what Shikamaru was getting at._

_"I dreamt it" Naruto replied with a shrug._

* * *

Talking

_Thinking_

**Kyuubi Talking**

**_Kyuubi Thinking_**

* * *

"How could you dream it?" Sakura asked in fear, though part of her tone held disbelief, not sure is she believed Naruto's response. Naruto shrugged, "I'm not sure, but I know for a fact that the little girl hid Yuri under a rock so that she would be safe from whatever was happening and she ran away with her mom" he reminded them of the doll that he'd found earlier.

"I know that the man in the basement was trying to get his son, Jiro, to come with him but he didn't want to, then the boy said it didn't matter if they went, it was too late. I also know that the last man ran through the alley to get away the thing following him. Whatever it was had claws and left marks in the brick. The brick that Kakashi-sensei pulled out with the note we got was the last thing the man was trying to get before he died. He was the man in the trash. The bracelet was something he tossed just before trying to take out the brick" Naruto explained to them all.

"Do you know what the man meant by 'heed the last' then?" Kakashi asked, having trouble processing that Naruto had known what had happened to the missing villagers.

Naruto shook his head, having no clue what the man could have meant.

"Did the other body speak to you?" Shikamaru asked. Naruto frowned, "Yeah" he said slowly, not knowing where this was going.

"What? He spoke to you?" Kurenai asked, voice wavering slightly.

Naruto nodded, "Yeah, he said, 'Get out while you still have a chance'" Naruto quoted.

"That's probably what this corpse was talking about, 'heed the last' may have meant the last warning dobe" Sasuke offered in explanation.

Shikamaru nodded in agreement, "Most likely, but the question is do we follow the warning?" he asked, turning to Kakashi questioningly. The rest of the group did so a moment later.

Everyone was shaking, they wanted out of the village like the man had told them.

"I'm sorry everyone, we have to stay here and figure out what happened, as our mission stated" Kakashi said regretfully.

"But Kakashi-sensei, we don't know what we're dealing with. We don't even know how to continue with this" Sakura argued, wanting to pack her bags and run screaming all the way back to Konoha, much like everyone else.

Even Sasuke and Shino, who were rarely afraid, agreed with all the others at this point.

"I know, but we were assigned this mission and agreed to take it. Even if we don't know what to do, we still have to make an effort. We'll inform the Hokage of our progress and we've already sent for back-up, that's all we can do at this point until we learn more" Kakashi said with a sigh.

He composed a letter and sent it off with another one of his summoned dog detailing more of what was going on. "It won't do you any good" Naruto said suddenly when the dog had raced off toward the village gate, an eerie tone to his voice, "We sealed our fate the moment we stepped into the village"

"What do you mean Naruto?" Kakashi asked in confusion.

Naruto gave a small laugh which made everyone shudder. His eyes had closed and when he opened them they were an eerie white, not like Hinata's, very sinister looking.

"Drops of blood, so pretty and red,

Will fall one by one as you fall dead.

You're in my web, but please try and run,

For me it will be much more fun.

I'll be on the hunt for you my friend,

I'll take great pleasure when your life does end.

Drops of blood, so pretty and red,

Will fall one by one as you fall dead."

Naruto finished the poem and gave a wide yawn.

Nobody spoke for a few minutes, frozen by what Naruto had said. "What'd you mean by that?" Sasuke finally asked in a shaky voice, hoping nobody would notice. Luckily for him everyone was focused more on what they'd just heard than on the Uchiha.

Naruto didn't answer, the silence had been enough to lull him to sleep and he was calmly leaning against the wall, his head resting on his shoulder.

"I think that we should let him sleep and stop questioning him for now, he still needs his rest after all" Kakashi said, carefully removing Naruto's backpack and taking out his sleeping bag and gently moving the boy onto it since it was too warm in the village to cover him up. "Why is he so tired anyway?" Sakura asked in confusion, looking at her teammate's sleeping form.

Sasuke was looking at his sensei for the response in slight interest. Actually everyone wanted to know and had their eyes on the jounin.

"Before last night he hadn't slept since the Wave mission at least, he's been showing up for practices less and less rested. I think last night was the first time he got any sleep in a long time, at least, a few hours of sleep" Kakashi explained, making sure Naruto was definitely comfortable before moving to take a seat near the other, speaking quietly so he wouldn't wake Naruto up.

"Wait, I thought that he was acting like himself up until a week ago" Sasuke interjected.

Kakashi sighed, "It's because you don't know a lot about chakra capacities yet, but when we were in Wave I watched over you all to make sure that if we were attacked I could wake you up. It was the night before we left and when I checked on Naruto he was sitting on his bed looking out the window for pretty much the whole night. Then again on our way back when we stopped to camp and Naruto begged for the first watch. If you remember he didn't wake any of us up until the next morning.

"Then at practices for the next few days you could see that his chakra was constantly fluctuating from down to up and back down. That's one of the downsides to soldier pills. They'll keep you awake but the mess up your chakra. In addition the soldier pills stop working over time as a person becomes more and more exhausted. Naruto's been using soldier pills since just after the Wave trip to keep himself awake and they've stopped working as effectively. He probably couldn't stay awake any longer with their help last night, even if he tried" Kakashi explained to everyone present except the sleeping boy.

"Well, we aren't going to find out anything unless we start gathering information, as it stands we have quite a bit of strange occurrences, but no clue as to what we're going to do about it" Asuma said after a small pause in the conversation, ready to get going again.

"That's true, first is that doll, the chakra on it was very strange, almost as if it was something else entirely, it cast a genjutsu with several effects, only targeted at a single individual after it had been handled multiple times" Kurenai listed.

"Actually, the first thing is Naruto's dreams. If he's been having trouble sleeping for such a long time then it's conceivable that he was dreaming about these events for a while. If Naruto's dreams are accurate then he would hold the most information" Shikamaru argued.

Kurenai nodded in agreement, "Yes, but we don't know much about his dreams, we'll have to wait until he wakes up to ask him anything so we shouldn't include them in our evidence until he can tell us what he knows" she pointed out.

"Right, next is the object that my team found, I'm the only one that remembers seeing it so there's a chance that a genjutsu was attached to it and activated itself once I had left the house" Asuma offered. "Yeah, we'll probably need a picture or the actual object for anything definitive though" Kakashi said.

"The corpses were both stripped of flesh and their eyes had been taken, the genjutsu used on the one I saw was pretty much nonexistent, I could not break it and the blood on Naruto was definitely real from the first corpse he found" Kurenai offered the next piece of the puzzle.

"And that piece of paper and those weird symbols are also strange, it seems like someone knew this would happen before the village disappearance, and took time to hide it, the brick is strange as well. That bracelet is also suspicious, since the corpse went through the trouble of placing it on Naruto" Asuma said.

"And finally there's the creepy poem Naruto told us, I mean, would he have changed appearance like that or said those things due to a genjutsu?" Ino asked.

The adults were frowning now, "I don't think so Ino, genjutsu traps people and shows them things that aren't there. It can affect them to a degree though. Besides, there was nobody here but us and a genjutsu of that difficulty would have to be cast extremely close to work as effectively as it seemed to. Plus it was relatively quick whatever it was, there would have been no time for Naruto to be affected that much unless they were highly skilled. We may not be dealing with a genjutsu specialist after all, whatever that chakra is may be causing us to see and do things we wouldn't regularly see or do like your clan techniques can do" Shikamaru suggested to his teammate, "There's also a chance that we were trapped in a genjutsu to see Naruto saying those things" he added after that.

"Well, that's all we have for now and we won't get anything more unless we keep looking around or Naruto wakes up, so let's start searching" Kakashi said, getting to his feet.

"We'll watch him, take Kiba with you and leave Hinata here please, then continue on your search" Kurenai offered, thinking that she really needed a break after what she'd just seen, plus the other two in her group would be less suited for the searching than Kakashi's. Hinata also really needed a break and should have been in the hospital after what had happened to her, not taking a mission. Kakashi nodded, "Come on guys" he said and they all got up and left.

"What do you think Naruto's dreaming about now?" Shikamaru asked as Naruto started to thrash and mumble to himself less than an hour later, it seemed the nightmares were back.

Kurenai shrugged, "I don't know but I don't think we can help him. He seems to be dreaming about what we're trying to discover for our mission so it's probably best to let him have the nightmare. I don't like it though, if he hasn't slept for a long time then his nightmares won't get him much rest" Kurenai said with a frown. Hinata soon fell asleep as well, but like Naruto she was having nightmares, though they were of the thing she had seen from the doll rather than premonitions or whatever Naruto was having.

The three tried to relax as they waiting for Naruto to wake up and the others to return, but it was much easier said than done.

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Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine

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_Last Time_

_"What do you think Naruto's dreaming about now?" Shikamaru asked as Naruto started to thrash and mumble to himself less than an hour later, it seemed the nightmares were back._

_Kurenai shrugged, "I don't know but I don't think we can help him. He seems to be dreaming about what we're trying to discover for our mission so it's probably best to let him have the nightmare. I don't like it though, if he hasn't slept for a long time then his nightmares won't get him much rest" Kurenai said with a frown. Hinata soon fell asleep as well, but like Naruto she was having nightmares, though they were of the thing she had seen from the doll rather than premonitions or whatever Naruto was having._

_The three tried to relax as they waiting for Naruto to wake up and the others to return, but it was much easier said than done._

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Talking

_Thinking_

**Kyuubi Talking**

**_Kyuubi Thinking_**

* * *

It was a couple hours later when the groups came back to check on Naruto and then went out again. They had found nothing, to their immense disappointment. After a couple of hours Naruto had fallen into a deep sleep, no longer dreaming about the village. Nobody wanted to wake him.

Soon it was nearing nightfall and everyone got something to eat. Hinata was awake and ate along with them, she was starting to worry Kurenai when she jumped at every little sound. Naruto continued to sleep well into the night, until Sakura woke everyone up by screaming a few hours later.

"Huh?" Naruto asked as he snapped into a sitting position, only half awake but very well rested. "There was someone there" the pinkette told everyone, shaking horribly. She was the one taking watch along with Ino, but Ino hadn't seen what Sakura had, not looking in the same place she had been.

"What do you mean Sakura? Did you see who?" Kakashi asked as Ino tried to calm her down, dropping their rivalry in favor of trying to help everyone survive.

Sakura nodded, "I don't know who it was. I was shining my flashlight around to check on everyone and I looked over where Naruto was. There was a black shadowy figure standing over him and when the figure looked up I saw he had a completely white eye. Then he vanished and I screamed" she explained shakily.

Naruto frowned, "It could have been whatever's attacking this place. I had a dream about it coming from here."

"When did you dream that dobe? And what do you mean whatever?" Kiba demanded, asking the same question everyone else had and turning his attention to the blonde. "Last night, and it's not a person that attacked them, in my dream it looks like it's a ghost or something, he's got one white eye, one eye's scarred and he doesn't seem to open it, and a huge cloak. He's got giant razor sharp claws and teeth, like that doll had" Naruto responded and got up.

"That's not possible dobe, ghosts don't exist" Sasuke scoffed. "Sasuke-kun's right, the person probably has an advanced bloodline or something" Ino added.

Naruto shook his head, "No, he was summoned. Here. I'll show you" Naruto told them, getting up and carrying his sleeping bag out of the room. "What are you showing us Naruto?" Chouji asked curiously, not sure what cleaning had to do with anything.

"You'll see, take all the sleeping bags off of the floor" Naruto requested. Everyone frowned but did as he asked.

Once it was no longer covered Naruto took out a kunai and cut out a small piece of the white carpet, reaching his hand under it and starting to tear it up from the wood below. Sasuke, Shikamaru, and Chouji started helping after a minute and it took the four no time at all to remove the carpet completely.

"What is that?" Asuma asked as everyone fought to get a look at the floor, standing outside the room so they wouldn't cover up whatever it was. "It's how the thing was summoned" Naruto repeated.

In the center of the room there was a very large circle with symbols around the outside. There were more designs drawn in the center and several places where wax had burned onto the wood.

"And what exactly does this prove? There's no way that ghosts exist" Sasuke insisted in irritation. "Actually Uchiha, if this is what I think it is then there's a good chance that they do" Shikamaru said, looking over the symbols critically.

"What do you mean by that?" Asuma asked in alarm, surveying his genius student. "My dad has several books on the occult, things he's gotten for research. I don't know too much since he's forbidden me from reading them, but from what I could sneak a peek at, well, there are several of these types of drawings throughout" Shikamaru said, crouching down to get a better look at the patterns.

"So? Someone probably was into the supernatural and covered this up when they got bored with it. It has nothing to do with this mission" Sasuke snapped, refusing to believe anything they were saying.

Shikamaru sighed at the arrogant boy's stubbornness. "The note" Shino said, ending the argument and causing everyone to look at him in confusion before Kakashi remembered the small piece of paper found in the brick and pulled it out of his bag.

"If you look at it this way it does make sense" Asuma conceded. "Right, at least what that person wrote would make it seem as though they'd discovered something that came every one hundred years" Shikamaru said, standing up and going to lean against a wall.

"So you know stuff about the occult?" Ino asked Shikamaru skeptically. Shikamaru shrugged, "Not much, just a little that I've figured out from books like I said" Shikamaru told her.

"Then you can figure out the ritual" Naruto said decisively.

Shikamaru sighed, "Troublesome, weren't you just listening?" he asked Naruto in exasperation.

Naruto ignored what he said and sat down on the design, "Okay so one hundred years ago this ritual was used to summon a person who had lived here way in the past. The woman doing the ritual started off by lighting black candles at the end of each line on the bigger circle, then she used watery stuff that she had in a dish to draw strange markings on the floor and on her stomach. She started saying things but I couldn't understand what because they were in a different language or something, there was some wind in the room and she stopped talking when a candle tipped over, lighting the watery stuff on the floor and forcing her to run out. That's all I saw before the dream changed to the man who owned the house that was murder a while ago" Naruto recounted.

Shikamaru frowned, Naruto had just described a few hundred rituals, "Well, I know black candles are for summoning negative energies, and I know that that" Shikamaru pointed to the center sphere, "is the symbol for a Blood Moon. If what happened a hundred years ago was a result of that woman's ritual then we can assume that when she messed up it caused the ritual to be repeated in the last two months" Shikamaru told them, trying to figure things out the best he could. Though like he'd said, he didn't have much experience with any of this and what he was pointing out was basic to rituals.

"Wait, but if that's true then why did they show up a hundred years later, and then a month later?" Ino challenged, glaring at him. Shikamaru shrugged, "That I don't know, we should figure that out, especially since it's probably going to be back again in three nights" Shikamaru told her.

"What?" several of them shouted in surprise. Shikamaru winced at the volume. "You're being too loud, it's troublesome" he scolded, "and yes, the next full moon is in three days. If the person who wrote that note is correct then we should be receiving a visit from the ghost then" he told them, earning panicked expressions from a few of them.

"What I want to know is why the dobe's dreaming about this stuff" Sasuke said, putting aside his skepticism for now to try and figure out more of the mystery. "That I don't know either" Shikamaru admitted, "I mean, it could be because of his furry friend but I don't see how that would make him have dreams like this" Shikamaru theorized.

The three adults immediately snapped their attention to the Nara and the genin all looked confused, except for Naruto, he looked shocked and slightly frightened.

"Furry friend?" Sakura asked in confusion, looking between Shikamaru and Naruto. "C'mon Shikamaru, we need to talk" Asuma said firmly and pulled the lazy genius out of the house, away from the others. Kakashi followed and Kurenai stayed where she was to make sure nobody followed and overheard what they would be discussing.

"What was that about sensei?" Kiba asked, not wanting to be left out, whining a bit. Kurenai shook her head, "I can't tell you, it's a secret, S-ranked" she told him, giving him a look that said not to keep asking her and to forget about what had been said. Kiba perked up at this though, maybe he could get it out of Shikamaru since he knew something.

Naruto watched from where he sat nervously, hoping Shikamaru hadn't figured out what he thought Shikamaru had.

* * *

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	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine

* * *

_Last Time_

_"Furry friend?" Sakura asked in confusion, looking between Shikamaru and Naruto. "C'mon Shikamaru, we need to talk" Asuma said firmly and pulled the lazy genius out of the house, away from the others. Kakashi followed and Kurenai stayed where she was to make sure nobody followed and overheard what they would be discussing._

_"What was that about sensei?" Kiba asked, not wanting to be left out, whining a bit. Kurenai shook her head, "I can't tell you, it's a secret, S-ranked" she told him, giving him a look that said not to keep asking her and to forget about what had been said. Kiba perked up at this though, maybe he could get it out of Shikamaru since he knew something._

_Naruto watched from where he sat nervously, hoping Shikamaru hadn't figured out what he thought Shikamaru had._

* * *

Talking

_Thinking_

**Kyuubi Talking**

**_Kyuubi Thinking_**

* * *

Asuma dragged Shikamaru pretty far from the house, making sure that they couldn't be overheard by anyone.

Kakashi followed close behind. "What do you mean by furry friend Shikamaru? Do you know Naruto's secret?" Kakashi demanded from the boy, starting to feel overprotective of his blonde student.

On the one hand this was bad, if Shikamaru could figure out the secret then there may have been a couple of others who had figured it out.

Thankfully Shikamaru was probably the smartest out of the younger generation so the secret was probably only figured out by him. In addition, Shikamaru knew the secret yet the others had seemed confused by what he'd said, meaning Shikamaru hadn't told anyone, not even his best friend, about what Naruto held.

Shikamaru nodded, "Of course I do, its common sense, I mean first of all Naruto was born on the day of the attack, he has whisker marks on his face, and almost every adult in Konoha seems to dislike him without any particular reason" Shikamaru reported his findings, rolling his eyes.

"And you've told nobody correct?" Kakashi asked, stepping forward threateningly. Shikamaru backed, "No, of course not, there's a reason it's a secret" he said, watching the jounin nervously.

"That's enough Kakashi, he hasn't told anyone" Asuma said firmly, protecting his student from the angry man and placing himself between the two.

Kakashi gave Shikamaru one last glare, "If you're lying and this gets out things will be very unpleasant and this village will be the least of your worries" he threatened before going back to the house.

For a moment it was quiet as Asuma and Shikamaru watched the man leave.

"It's fine Shikamaru, let's go back, Kakashi doesn't mean to be so intimidating, he's just jumpy about whatever we're being attacked by, we all are" Asuma said. Shikamaru nodded, "I know, and I won't tell anyone" he assured his sensei. Asuma smiled and nodded, "I know" he replied.

The two made their way to the others but Shikamaru stopped just outside the house when he saw small scratch marks at the base of the doorframe, both sides. He pulled out a kunai and started to dig at the frame.

"What are you doing?" Ino asked him curiously, diverting everyone's attention from whatever they had been talking about to the lazy genius. "I don't know, these markings are strange for their location, plus they're too deep to have just been normal wear marks" he told her, continuing to pry at the wood.

Chouji took the other side of the doorframe. Soon Shikamaru was able to pull out a small piece of paper. He frowned.

"What's it say?" Ino asked him worriedly. "You should have left when you had the chance, if you run I'll follow. Your nightmare is just beginning and I'm watching you. I'm watching you seer" Shikamaru read.

Right next to him Chouji had run outside to throw up when he uncovered what had been hidden. Hinata moved to see what he'd uncovered and stuck her hand over her mouth to prevent what Chouji had just done.

"Eyes" she said with a tremor in her voice. A couple of the others moved nervously and looked at the find. There were nine human eyes staring up at them from the ground.

The note in Shikamaru's hand burst into flames a second later, making him yelp and drop it to the ground where it turned to ash completely. Asuma looked at his student's hand but it hadn't been burned, Shikamaru had just been surprised.

"We're trapped then" Ino said, starting to panic. She'd wanted to leave after hearing about the first dead body like most of the others but they'd been told to stay put.

"Who's the seer?" Chouji asked coming back in, looking extremely sick. He grabbed his pack and found a water bottle, taking a long drink from it, draining the thing completely. They were all running low on water again and would have to get more soon, hoping they could get out just past the border and be safe long enough to be able to get some.

"I don't buy it" Sasuke said. "What?" Shikamaru asked. "That we can't leave the village. I mean, it's not like anyone's going to follow us all the way to Konoha and attack us with so many ninja around" he said reasonably.

"Unless there is a ghost present" Shino stated. Sasuke shook his head, "I admit the ritual and everything does explain everything, but that doesn't mean that a ghost did them. This could just be a large group of people trying to scare us and pick us off one by one when we're too scared to do anything" he said firmly, talking much more than usual because he wanted his point to get across so they could focus on things he thought were more productive.

"I think I am" Naruto said, everyone turned to look at him. "Are what idiot?" Sakura asked, not seeing how it related to the current discussion. " The seer," Naruto said, "I've been seeing what happened so maybe they think I could do something about them and are trying to keep me from doing anything, like the shadow man from before" he suggested.

"Naruto's probably right, we'll have to try and look out for him at night taking shifts, it'd be better if we did anyway, we don't want people getting hurt if there's an attack some night. Plus, as much as I hate to say it Naruto probably needs to sleep so that he can dream further" Shikamaru said.

Naruto gave a small squeak in fear but tried to compose himself quickly, "Wouldn't it be better if we searched for more things in the village instead of just having me sleep? I mean now that we sort of know what we're looking for we'd be more likely to find it" Naruto said, trying to stay away from the nightmares.

Shikamaru nodded, "I'm not saying you need to sleep all the time, but if your dreams can lead you to some important clues then we'll need you to dream about them" Shikamaru explained. Naruto sighed in defeat.

"Right now we need to search as fast as possible if we're going to be attacked in three days. We're sticking with the ghost theory for now" Kakashi continued, ignoring the glare from the Uchiha. "We'll be splitting up the teams again. We need to cover more area but nobody will go by themselves." Kakashi explained.

He turned to the others, "Alright, Kurenai with Hinata, Kiba with Chouji, Ino with Asuma, Shikamaru with Sakura, Shino and Sasuke, me and Naruto" he listed. He didn't know much about most of them since he'd never worked with them before but figured Hinata needed more protection since she'd already been attacked. He also knew that Sakura definitely wasn't ready for this sort of mission and wanted her with someone like Shikamaru who was quick to think in difficult situations from what he'd heard. Lastly he wanted to make sure that Naruto wasn't attacked and hoped that his presence would keep him safe enough so that they could figure everything out.

"We'll meet here in an hour, if everyone would keep track of the group nearest them then we'll hopefully all be fine" Kakashi instructed and they started their search.

"Come on sensei" Naruto called, running ahead, "Wait, we don't want to miss anything" Kakashi reprimanded lightly. Naruto turned back to him, "I know, and that's why we need to hurry" he whined. Kakashi sighed, Naruto was up to his usual antics.

* * *

Chouji and Kiba, and Akamaru carefully crept into a house. "Do they really think this is a good idea?" Kiba asked shakily, referring to their sensei's choice. Akamaru was shaking heavily in his partner's sweatshirt, careful not to whimper and draw anyone to their location. "I guess, but even so we don't really have a choice do we?" Chouji asked back.

There was a light switch on their right and they tried it, only to find that this one, like the others, was out of power as well. "Do you have a flashlight?" Kiba asked, not being as prepared as he should have been. "Yeah," Chouji handed his to the dog user.

Kiba lead the way to the basement and they made their way down the stairs, flinching at every creak the steps made. When they reached the bottom they stuck close to each other.

They surveyed the area and were about to continue onto a room they'd seen further ahead when Kiba tripped, the flashlight falling from his hand before slamming into the ground and going out. As soon as the lights disappeared Akamaru freaked out, snarling loudly at something both boys felt but couldn't see.

* * *

Kurenai and Hinata had chosen a house with no basement and were exploring the second floor currently, having moved through the first quickly. "Are you doing alright Hinata?" Kurenai questioned. Hinata didn't look or feel fine but nodded in determination. "I'm fine sensei, I can't just sit and let everyone get hurt so I'll help" she said.

Kurenai smiled at the response, "Alright then, come on, we're almost done" she told the girl and they pushed open the last door, gasping at what they saw.

* * *

Ino stuck close to Asuma and looked around nervously. "You know Ino, even though this is a dangerous situation, I need you to focus on the original purpose of this mission. You're very rude to everyone but the Uchiha it seems. I saw you glaring at Shikamaru for making all those suggestions that the Uchiha might be wrong. I'm not saying Shikamaru's right, but you can't just agree with everything the boy you admire says" Asuma lectured.

Ino sighed, "Sensei, now's a bad time for this, fine, I'll think about it. Can we focus on this so we don't end up like those things that attacked us?" she asked in exasperation.

Asuma grumbled a bit but complied, pushing open the closest door which caused both of them to cover their noses at the stench and Ino to flinch horribly at the sight.

* * *

Shino and Sasuke didn't speak as they walked, aside from Sasuke's slight grumbling now and then about how there was no way ghosts existed. The house they were walking through was completely empty, it looked much more vacant than all the other houses they'd visited before, due to complete lack of furniture in it.

* * *

Shikamaru and Sakura were moving cautiously through the rooms. In reality this pairing had been a bad plan. Though Kakashi knew about Shikamaru's intellect he didn't know about his propensity to flee or give up when conflict arose.

"Are you going to open the door?" Sakura asked him nervously when they stopped in front of one. "I don't think there's anything there" Shikamaru replied quickly, turning around and moving back towards the door. Sakura grabbed him by the arm as he passed. "I'm not going to open it, I can't die here, I have to marry Sasuke-kun, you do it" she whined, pressing into his arm painfully.

Shikamaru looked at her pleadingly but she didn't budge, pushing the reluctant boy in front of the door. Shikamaru took a deep breath, pulling his arm out of her hands. He hesitated once more before reaching for the handle.

* * *

Kakashi and Naruto were in the house behind Sakura and Shikamaru. "There's nothing here that I can sense" Naruto said in slight disappointment. "Come on, we have to check the entire house even if you don't sense anything" Kakashi told him, starting to get irritated.

"Sensei" Naruto suddenly squeaked, pointing to the door on their left. Kakashi frowned, the door handle was moving. "Is someone there?" he called carefully, stepping back just in case. He knew he shouldn't alert anyone to their presence until they entered, but with everything that had been happening he figured if it was someone dangerous then his voice might chase them off since if it was a person they had been very careful to keep hidden.

"No" a voice called back, equally as squeaky as Naruto's had been a moment before. The no was quickly followed by shouting and a yelp of pain. "You idiot, that's my sensei" Sakura's voice was now identified. The door swung open to reveal Shikamaru and Sakura to them. Shikamaru was on the floor with a bruise on his head and Sakura was standing there next to him looking innocent.

Kakashi sighed, "Sakura, please don't hit your partner" he requested. "But he's such a coward" she whined, ignoring the fact that she was the same if not worse than he was.

"Did you two find anything?" Kakashi asked, ignoring the two's incompatibility for now. "No, nothing, thankfully" Shikamaru muttered. Sakura glared down at him. "If we want to get out of here alive then we have to find something" she shrieked at him.

"You find something, I'll hide and you can come get me when it's all over" Shikamaru told her in irritation, pushing himself to his feet.

Sakura walked over to her two team members. "I think I might be better off with Naruto even at this point" she said blankly. Kakashi sighed, "Sakura, I'll try and work something out for you tomorrow, it's starting to get dark out anyway so we should get back to the others" Kakashi told them.

Shikamaru yawned widely, "Good, I'd like to work with someone less violent if that's okay" he said and then froze, pointing behind Kakashi. Kakashi turned and his eyes widened.

"Sensei," Sakura whispered in fear. Naruto was struggling. Both of them were being held tightly by one of the corpses and it was dragging them backwards, into a room Naruto and Kakashi hadn't checked yet. Kakashi immediately took action, throwing two kunai at the wrists of the thing.

This time it worked, slicing them off. Sakura and Naruto both worked the hands off which still gripped them and the corpse vanished into the shadows behind them.

"Are you both alright?" Kakashi asked. Sakura and Naruto nodded, panting heavily. "We need to get out of here, find the…" he started but stopped when he'd turned fully to find Shikamaru no longer behind him.

"Shikamaru" Kakashi called. "What's going on?" Sakura asked, looking around for signs of the lazy boy.

"I don't know, we have to find him fast" Kakashi said and they started their search.

* * *

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Please Review


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine

* * *

_Last Time_

_"Are you both alright?" Kakashi asked. Sakura and Naruto nodded, panting heavily. "We need to get out of here, find the…" he started but stopped when he'd turned fully to find Shikamaru no longer behind him._

_"Shikamaru" Kakashi called. "What's going on?" Sakura asked, looking around for signs of the lazy boy._

_"I don't know, we have to find him fast" Kakashi said and they started their search._

* * *

It was three hours later and pitch black outside that they met up with the other groups, Shikamaru still missing.

"What gives Kakashi? You're late, we were about to go looking for you" Kurenai said, relief evident in her voice despite her reprimand. The rest of them were all there. Several of them were pretty shaken though. "Where's Shikamaru?" Chouji asked, looking around for his best friend.

Kakashi tensed as if bracing himself, and explained the situation to them. "So you just let him get dragged off. Damn it Kakashi, you should have left him with me" Asuma snarled. Kakashi looked away from the angry man. "I know Asuma, I'm sorry, but he wasn't anywhere, I summoned all of my dogs except Pakkun and Biscuit who went to Konoha going for back-up and my report, they said his scent wasn't there at all" he apologized.

"Everyone, take a seat" Kurenai shouted, seeing all of them getting worked up. "Sensei, we need to get out of here, this is way too dangerous" Kiba said, echoed by the rest of the group.

"I know, but what would you have me do? We cannot leave if what the message says is true. Panicking right now will lead to all of us getting killed, and there's a good chance that Shikamaru is still alive, otherwise we would have all been killed already. We need to sit down and discuss everything rationally" Kurenai said.

"Plus we need to find Shikamaru before we go anywhere" Chouji said firmly, glaring at Kiba for suggesting they leave the boy behind.

Finally when everyone was seated they started to discuss everything they'd found.

Kurenai and Hinata went first. "The house that we visited was pretty empty from the looks of things, until we reached the closet" she said.

Flashback

_Kurenai and Hinata opened the door and gasped. "That's Kakashi-sensei, isn't it?" Hinata asked, backing away slowly. Kurenai resisted the urge to leave and throw up, kneeling down next to the corpse._

_Hinata had been asking due to the forehead protector pulled over one eye, the patches of silvery hair still attached, and of course the mask._

_Kurenai looked at it in disbelief for a few moments. "It can't be Hinata, this person has been dead for a while" she said reassuringly, for both her own, and Hinata's benefit. "But, it looks like him" Hinata argued shakily._

_Kurenai nodded and then noticed some red lettering below him, wincing and pushing the corpse off of it. "You shouldn't have told anyone" Kurenai read. "Sensei, the body" Hinata cried urgently. Kurenai looked up and frowned, "Where did it go?" she asked, turning to her student in confusion._

"That's why we were just about to go looking for you, we thought maybe the thing had attacked you" Kurenai explained.

"Then it was probably a message for him" Asuma said. "What sort of message is that though? 'I shouldn't have told anyone?'" Kakashi asked.

"You sent for help" Sasuke pointed out. "That's right, it was probably warning you that they're going to come after you now sensei" Sakura said. "But it went after me, you, and Shikamaru, not sensei" Naruto argued.

"Yeah, but it is also after you as well Uzumaki-san, if you are in fact the seer it spoke of" Shino said. "But that doesn't change the fact that he's right, Shikamaru was the one taken, not Naruto" Kurenai said, "Let's move on to the next group" she suggested.

"Well for ours the ground floor was clear, but in the basement…" Kiba started.

Flashback

_The flashlight flickered and died a moment after landing on the ground and Akamaru's growling filled the room. "Kiba?" Chouji called. "I'm right here. Akamaru, come here" Kiba called, moving to get closer to Chouji so hopefully they would be safer._

_Akamaru didn't listen, growling fiercely at whatever he sensed. A moment later he yelped and went silent. "Akamaru" Kiba shouted. "Shhh" Chouji requested, straining his ears. There was a small sound of scratching and a small glow appeared, a green glow cast for a couple feet._

"_C'mon" Kiba said, dragging Chouji to his feet. "Are you sure?" Chouji asked, voice wavering. Kiba nodded, "We have to find Akamaru" he said back. When they reached the light it moved, as if asking them to follow._

_They exchanged glances and followed it. They were led through a door and down a long passageway, stopping when they reached a door that was locked. "Kiba" Chouji whispered, tugging on his friend's arm and pointing at the doorknob. Both of them flinched when a hand shown by the glowing light wrapped around it and pushed it open._

_The light went out and Kiba and Chouji quickly entered the room. "What is this?" Kiba asked, sneezing from the scent of decaying flesh. Chouji threw up as soon as he entered the room due to the smell. "I can't see anything, we need to go back" Chouji said urgently, wiping off his mouth. Kiba shook his head again, trying to prevent himself from throwing up as well. His nose was much more sensitive than Chouji's but thankfully he'd trained around stuff that had smelled just as bad._

_A moment later candles sprang to life, lining the walls. Kiba shrieked and Chouji gave a yelp. Around them were jars of fluid, with eyes floating in them. "Come on" Chouji said, this time not towards the door but towards one of the jars. He shakily lifted it up. "Is that money?" Kiba asked, pointing at where the jar had just been._

_Chouji looked down and nodded, "I think so, it's a coin at least" he said, picking it up and pocketing it quickly. "Should we bring some of the eyes with us too?" Kiba asked shakily. Chouji shook his head, "I think they'll believe us if we just tell them, they look like regular eyes to me" he said back._

_The rest of the jars contained coins underneath them as well which they quickly collected._

"_You didn't see Akamaru here did you?" Kiba asked hopefully. Chouji shook his head, "I'm sorry, he's not here," they both heard the sound of barking at that moment and second later something white sprang into Kiba's arms. "Akamaru, you're okay" Kiba said in relief._

_Akamaru whined, snuggling up to Kiba's chest. Kiba pulled his hand away when he felt wetness and noticed it was covered in blood. "Akamaru, what happened? Are you alright?" he asked worriedly. He immediately sat down and put the puppy in his lap, looking him over. Chouji removed a candle from the wall and held it closer to the dog._

"_Thanks" Kiba said absently, noting that Akamaru had a pretty bad gash, though having a bit of trouble seeing the extent because of his partner's fur. "We need more light, let's get out of here" Chouji said after they'd sat with Akamaru for a few moments. Kiba nodded and took off his coat, wrapping up his partner and carrying him out the door. Chouji looked back to see if they'd missed anything and his eyes widened, the room was completely empty. _

_They started for the exit. As they walked the lights on the walls flickered on, guiding them out and finally they were outside. Immediately they focused on finding Kurenai and Hinata, hoping his teammate would have something to stop the bleeding._

"That was it. He's doing okay now, but we need to get him back to Konoha so my sister can take a look at him" Kiba said, looking down at the puppy sleeping in his lap. His left side, and back left leg were heavily bandaged. It looked as though something sharp had tried to cut him in half and he'd moved at just the right moment.

"Okay, I'll tell ours" Sasuke said.

Flashback

_The house was originally empty when a breeze blew at them from under one of the walls and both Shino and Sasuke turned to look at it. "What's that?" Sasuke asked, seeing movement from behind the wall as if someone had been watching and was now moving away from them. "I do not know" Shino responded._

_They both went to the wall and started to pry up the boards. It was fairly easy, on the back of each piece of wood it was evident that they were rotting. _

_When they'd cleared a big enough opening they climbed into it. "You have a flashlight right?" Sasuke asked, pulling out his own. Shino nodded and pulled his out. Behind the wall was a large tunnel made mostly of rock. The house was built with a hill right behind it and they figured this must lead through the hill._

"_A room" Sasuke said when his flashlight's light landed on a door. They both entered it after jiggling the lock a bit._

_The room was covered in furniture and underneath it were a lot of symbols like they'd seen in the house that the woman supposedly summoned the demon from._

_They both agreed to move all the furniture around the wall and both of them drew a picture on pieces of paper._

"We were going to try and see if Shikamaru could explain them but obviously that's not going to happen now" Sasuke said, pulling out the drawings. Kakashi looked it over with a critical eye. "This isn't the same as the other" he finally said.

Kurenai was looking over Shino's drawing and nodded in agreement. "This part right here is reversed on the other one, and the center black circle in the other one is white on your picture" she explained.

"Exactly, meaning we still have no idea what we're dealing with" Asuma said and sighed.

"Maybe that's why Shikamaru got taken, he knew too much" Naruto suggested. "That makes sense unfortunately" Ino said.

"Now for ours" Asuma decided.

Flashback

"_Sensei?" Ino asked, looking at him in fear. Asuma nodded, "Come on, we have to enter it" he said, leading her into the room, keeping her in front of him so he could keep an eye on her if they did get attacked._

_The room had nothing spectacular about it, except for the corpse of a woman resting on the bed, her body disfigured like all the others._

"_The first to leave is the first to die" the heard behind them. Asuma immediately pulled Ino to him as they spun around. Another corpse stood behind them, eyeless sockets apparently looking them over. "What?" Ino asked in shock. "The first to leave, is the first to die" it repeated, slower this time, taking a step forward._

_Asuma moved back, pulling Ino along with him. "The first to leave, is the first to die" it said on last time, collapsing to the ground._

_Asuma knelt down, looking at the thing's hand which was clenched around a chain. "Sensei, don't" Ino squealed but Asuma ignored her, prying the hand open. The chain was attached to a golden orb of some sort. There was liquid sloshing around inside as Asuma moved it._

"_Come on, we should show this to everyone before it disappears as well" Asuma decided._

"This is it," he told them, holding it out. Kakashi took it, unscrewing the lid and taking a small sniff. "I don't smell anything," he said, handing it to Kiba so he could check it. Kiba said the same, as did Shino.

"Well, if the corpse was carrying it then it probably is important" Kurenai decided. "Right. One of us will have to hold onto it, probably someone not holding onto a lot of stuff, if we're taken we'll need at least one person to have some of our findings" Kakashi said, handing it to Asuma.

"I think that's all we can do for tonight, we seem to be in more danger in the dark. We'll have two people keeping watch each time, Naruto won't be one of them but anyone else will work. We'll get something to eat bright and early and then start our search again. As little time as we have I would like to get everywhere covered, but because of Shikamaru's disappearance I want Shino, Sakura, and Naruto with me again. Kurenai will take Hinata and Sasuke. Asuma will take Ino, Chouji, and Kiba" Kakashi decided.

They got something to eat at the village border, refilled their waters, and then tried to get some sleep in a house that had been thoroughly checked.

* * *

Author's Note: Sorry for not updating right away. I went off to college and forgot my thumb drive with everything on it. I've finally been able to get back home and upload this chapter.

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine

* * *

_Flashback_

_"I think that's all we can do for tonight, we seem to be in more danger in the dark. We'll have two people keeping watch each time, Naruto won't be one of them but anyone else will work. We'll get something to eat bright and early and then start our search again. As little time as we have I would like to get everywhere covered, but because of Shikamaru's disappearance I want Shino, Sakura, and Naruto with me again. Kurenai will take Hinata and Sasuke. Asuma will take Ino, Chouji, and Kiba" Kakashi decided._

_They got something to eat at the village border, refilled their waters, and then tried to get some sleep in a house that had been thoroughly checked._

_

* * *

_

The night was completely uneventful, unlike the night before. They started right away, hoping that they could somehow find Shikamaru or at least a clue to Shikamaru's whereabouts.

They found nothing to indicate what had happened to him, to their immense disappointment, but they found a lot more things that they deemed important. They met just before noon.

"Okay, we got a journal written from one hundred years ago" Asuma said when they met up, tossing the thing to Kakashi.

"I think it's detailing something about the woman who called upon the spirits. It says that there was a crazy woman into witchcraft living in the village. It talked about how she claimed she could cure illnesses and curse people if she felt like it. Around the time the last entry was written she talked about how something was finally going to happen" Asuma explained. "The rest is mainly just a diary" he finished.

Kakashi carefully opened it, it was very old and not in the best shape. He flipped through it a bit and then closed it.

"You guys found something too?" Kakashi asked, turning to Kurenai. "Yes we found this rock" she told him, handing him a multifaceted clear object. Kakashi looked it over in his hand.

"I don't know if it means anything" Kakashi said finally. "It was on the ceiling in that house in my dream" Naruto said. Everyone turned to him, "are you sure?" Asuma asked in confusion, wondering how it would be on the ceiling in the first place.

Naruto nodded, taking it from Kakashi, "see, right here there's two holes in it" Naruto said, showing them.

"Right, so that was part of it, how about Kurenai carries it" Kakashi decided.

"Well, we don't know if these were important but we found a lot of black candles and brought them with us since there were black candles in the ritual" Kakashi said dropping the candles on the ground in front of them.

"There were thirteen in my dream and we found thirteen" Naruto said helpfully.

When they had presented everything the group took a break while Kakashi, Kurenai, and Asuma went over the things they had collected.

At the end of the book Kakashi paused. "You didn't think this was important?" he asked Asuma. Asuma looked over his shoulder.

"That wasn't there when we found it" Asuma told him, looking over the message.

"What's it say?" Ino asked, the genin all started to crowd around the book. "Sit down everyone, it says 'Beware seer, the Ninth won't win'" Asuma told them.

Everyone looked from the book to Naruto in confusion. "What does that mean?" Kiba finally asked, looking up from where he'd been petting Akamaru. He'd been looking after Akamaru for most of the time instead of searching, Akamaru couldn't even walk on his back leg.

"It's meant for Uzumaki-san" Shino said. "We know that, but what's it telling him?" Sakura asked.

"The nine genin might be it but I have no idea how to tell who the ninth is. It could be the ninth in the alphabet, the ninth born, the ninth in height, or the ninth in terms of strength. I doubt that's right either." Kakashi postulated.

"The ninth demon" Naruto suddenly said. "What?" Ino and Sakura both asked, everyone else wore expressions asking the same thing.

"The ninth demon, that would make sense to me, maybe he's saying that my furry friend can't win" Naruto told them.

"That's a dangerous conclusion" Asuma told the blonde. Naruto shrugged, "I don't even know if I'm right. I can't talk to him so I don't think I'll get his help anyway"

"Actually the spirit is probably afraid of him, he must feel some sort of a threat which is why he's telling you it won't work" Kakashi said.

"What's a demon have to do with anything?" Sakura suddenly shouted, gaining everyone's attention.

She blushed, "Sorry, I want to know what they're talking about" she said in a quiet, embarrassed voice. "Might as well tell them, I think I probably should try and contact him" Naruto said.

The three present that knew looked at him in shock, another one who knew but had kept the knowledge to himself merely raised his eyebrow.

"If this thing knows about him then he might know about it. He might help because if I die he dies and he doesn't want that" Naruto continued. He turned to the others nervously and looked at Kakashi with a questioning gaze.

Kakashi inclined his head, giving Naruto permission, though he didn't really have the authority to stop Naruto if he did want to tell them.

"Okay, twelve years ago when the Kyuubi no Kitsune attacked he wasn't killed like everyone was told. He was sealed into me. I have the Kyuubi no Kitsune sealed inside of my body. I felt him once in Wave but haven't since then. I think that if he knows what's going on we can get out of here. If not then I think we'll still be safe since I don't think he can get out" Naruto told everyone.

"I'm inclined to agree with you Naruto, if the seal is strong enough to keep even a sliver of demonic chakra from leaking through at this moment, then we'll have to trust it to hold" Kakashi said.

"Have you spoken to the fox before?" Shino asked him. Naruto looked at him, tilting his head slightly, "you knew before didn't you?" he asked. Shino nodded, "I sensed it once or twice when you became angered in the Academy" he told Naruto.

"Well, I haven't spoken to him before but I did use his chakra once" he told them.

"My dad says that if you meditate then you can reach into your subconscious sometimes. You might be able to find the Kyuubi if you do that" Ino said hesitantly, not as freaked out as Naruto would have expected.

Actually everyone was taking the news quite well but it could have been the fact that they'd been too scared from the events of the past couple days to gather up the energy to be freaked out at this. Naruto frowned, "I don't know, I don't sit still very well" he told her.

"Yeah you do Naruto, remember when you think sometimes?" Sakura asked. Naruto frowned. "You lie on your back usually and just kind of stare off into space, then you usually think of something. Now you can do it trying to find the Kyuubi" she said, voice wavering.

Naruto was confused as to how she knew he did that but nodded.

"Okay, but nobody watch me, I refuse to do it while people are staring" he said childishly.

"Fine, I'll stay here in case something comes and keep my back turned" Kakashi told him, rolling his eyes at Naruto's bout of immaturity.

Naruto nodded in agreement and found a nice spot on a hill to lie down. He kept moving until he found a comfortable position and allowed his mind to drift.

* * *

Author's Note: Sorry for the short chapter but I figured this was a good place to stop.

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Naruto's not mine

* * *

_Flashback_

_Naruto nodded in agreement and found a nice spot on a hill to lie down. He kept moving until he found a comfortable position and allowed his mind to drift._

* * *

The first thing Naruto noticed after a long period of wait was that he was somewhere else.

"My mind is a sewer. That's just great, if anyone finds out I'll be mocked forever" Naruto grumbled to himself, looking around to try and find the Kyuubi, walking through water which he hoped was sanitary.

It didn't take as long as he expected to find a big cage with a seal on it.

"Kyuubi" he called loudly. The area behind the cage lit up to reveal the giant, red, fox-shaped chakra mass which condensed into a solid red fox that sat in front of him moments later.

"**What do you want container?"** it asked him, growling. "We're in the Village of the Moon and really weird things are happening" he told the fox, getting straight to the point because he didn't want to have to stay and deal with the demon for very long.

The fox growled slightly, **"and you want my help? Why should I?"** he asked, correctly interpreting the reason for his container's presence. "Because, some ghost says we're going to die" Naruto said.

Kyuubi's tails swished as he thought. **"Fine, show me this village, think about what it looks like"** he ordered.

A second later Naruto had to take a step back, "**What the hell are you doing in the Village of the Damned?"** the Kyuubi roared at him.

"We were sent here on a mission to find why the people vanished" Naruto said nervously, sweating as the red chakra moved outside the cage rapidly and swirled everywhere due to the Kyuubi's agitation.

Kyuubi stood up in the cage and started to pace. **"You stupid kit, the Village of the Damned is cursed by an evil spirit. One hundred years ago it was summoned. After the spirit killed the people living there it was powerful enough to come back and kill the survivors. You are here two months after the anniversary where the spirit would be three times its original strength"** Kyuubi growled.

"Right you are Kyuubi" they heard and turned to look at the owner of the voice. Kyuubi roared at the man now present in Naruto's mindscape.

"That's no way to greet an old friend Kyuubi, I just wanted to visit, tell you that you're going to die, that sort of thing" the man said with a small smile, walking closer.

Before he'd been hidden in the shadows but now he could be seen clearly. His open white eye glowed in the dark and he wore the tattered cloak like the doll had. There was a scar across his left eye and his razor-like teeth shone as he smiled.

"**You can't kill me nameless one, you lack the strength"** Kyuubi growled back, mostly bluffing. The man seemed to know this and laughed. Naruto shivered at the sound.

"If I'm right then killing this boy will kill you in turn, you shouldn't have allowed him to enter into this village if you wished to survive. You still have a little time left until I kill you though, that should give you a bit of comfort" the man responded in a slightly condescending tone. **"Leave"** Kyuubi roared and a small amount of his chakra leaked through the cage again, rushing towards the man, he disappeared from Naruto and Kyuubi's sight, laughing loudly, before any of Kyuubi's chakra had reached him.

A few seconds passed before Kyuubi rounded on Naruto**, "He is right, he can end my life by ending yours, you need to get out of the village"** Kyuubi ordered.

Naruto shook his head, "I can't, he said that he could track us past the village and in one of my dreams he did exactly that with a couple of people" Naruto argued.

"Not to mention our friend was taken by him and we don't know where he is or even if he's still alive" he added.

"**If what you say is true then it's less than three days before the full moon and we will most likely die here. As to your friend I have no idea and I don't really care to think of one"** Kyuubi told Naruto. "Can you help, at least with the escaping then?" Naruto asked slightly pleadingly.

He knew asking about Shikamaru wouldn't get him anywhere if the fox wasn't interested in assisting. Kyuubi thought for a moment. **"I'll give you full access to my chakra. You can't use more than a tail at this point without injuring yourself and becoming an easier target, but if need be take as much as you can. There's a great chance that you will heal from the injuries with me being inside of you if injured by normal means. Find everything you can on the ritual that released the spirit. I can assist you more after that. Use my chakra to return yourself to me. You'll figure it out if you need to"** Kyuubi told him, knowing he would have no choice if he wanted to continue his existence and taking charge of the situation quickly. Naruto nodded and slowly went back into awareness.

Everyone was standing around him staring. "I said nobody watch me" he shouted angrily, blushing slightly. "Sorry, but you were out for several hours, we wanted to make sure you were okay" Kakashi explained.

Naruto glared, "I'm fine, anyway, Kyuubi told me this is a place called the Village of the Damned." Naruto relayed the rest of what Kyuubi had said to them.

"So he'll definitely be back then, like Shikamaru predicted. Shikamaru said that the ritual contained the symbol for the Blood Moon. That's probably something you should tell the Kyuubi about. I think that it's the main part of whatever ritual was being preformed because of when the spirit appears" Kakashi told him.

Naruto nodded and quickly sunk back into his mind to find the Kyuubi.

"**Good, I can work with this. The spirit is easy to predict, at least up until the Blood Moon. Every night it has full range of the village, it can't harm you directly until the Blood Moon is present though but it might be able to harm you through your friends. During the night I'm assuming it's also able to possess the dead bodies of those it has already killed like it did yesterday to take your friend friend so be more careful if you know a dead body is near. I'm assuming it was able to possess you during the daytime because of your lack of sleep because it isn't strong enough to usually do so. That won't happen again with me blocking it out, not even during the night. If you have three days left then I would suggest starting on it now. You need to find out what those symbols were. If you see any of them in the village I'll need to see them later, they'll be circling the border of the village, remember them or write them down,"** Kyuubi ordered.

"**Be careful about what you say, all of you. Try and keep as much to yourself as necessary and don't mention the need to see the symbols either"** he added. Naruto nodded in understanding and went back to the group. He didn't want to just keep following Kyuubi's orders, but Kyuubi had also explained that if he told the others about the symbols then there was a chance that the spirit would be drawn to them and start to hinder the process of discovering them all before it was too late.

Naruto refused to speak about what Kyuubi had told him to the others surprise. "I can't the spirit may be listening, Kyuubi told me not to say anything to you guys" he said.

Kakashi frowned at how easily Naruto was listening to the demon but reluctantly accepted the fox's logic.

He sighed, knowing it wouldn't be wise to force it out of him. "We have roughly five more hours before nightfall so we need to split up and do our searching again. Did Kyuubi give you any hints for where to look at least?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto nodded, "The outside of the village, on the border, but he says that I should search alone" Naruto said. At that Kakashi shook his head, "No, I can't allow that at all Naruto. We won't watch whatever you're going to be doing, but if that man gets you as well we'll all probably die" Kakashi told him.

Naruto pouted a bit but finally agreed to Kakashi's terms. "We'll meet back here to eat and discuss sleeping arrangements again" Kakashi decided and they all left to do just that.

Naruto stuck near the group and finally found his first symbol. He had swiped a notebook that Sakura usually carried and was drawing the symbols out carefully. Kyuubi had said that one wrong symbol would ruin his part in the plan.

He'd gone halfway around the village with the notebook when he got called by Kakashi. "The sun's setting, we need to get to the others" Kakashi shouted. Naruto had gotten further and further away from them as his search had progressed and they were nearly a block away now.

"Give me another hour" Naruto shouted back. "No, we have to get somewhere safe" Kakashi told him stubbornly. Naruto sighed, "Fine, one more minute here and I'll be ready" Naruto called. He finished the symbol carefully and closed the notebook, sticking it into his jumpsuit and racing to catch up to his team.

The location they chose was a small shop. They had thoroughly inspected it and found nothing there that they deemed dangerous.

"We found nothing," Asuma said with a sigh when they started sharing, getting more and more worried about his student as time wore on. "Neither did we, it's like all the things we were seeing before just vanished" Kurenai said.

"Same with us, Naruto found some things, but he won't share them with me" Kakashi said. Naruto glared, "Kyuubi told me not to, besides, I don't even know if Kyuubi's plans going to work. You work on something else and I'll work on this" Naruto told him in slight irritation.

Kakashi sighed, "Fine, fine, do you know when you'll be done?" he asked. Naruto shook his head. "I'm halfway done right now though" he said. "Well, you'll work on that tomorrow morning. We're going to get up right at dawn" Kakashi said. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Sensei, what's this?" Ino asked suddenly. She'd been looking for something in her pocket and fished out a small golden amulet. "That's the thing that you were supposed to be guarding earlier" Asuma said, taking it from her hand.

"It wasn't in my pocket before, I had some of a ration bar left over and that was the only thing in my pocket" she said in confusion. "What about this then, I definitely didn't have this before" Chouji added, holding up a large red orb, it had been in Chouji's backpack and was about the size of a softball. "I have no idea Chouji" Asuma told him.

"Everyone else check your pockets and bags" Kakashi ordered. Nobody else found anything, except for Naruto. "It's a piece of paper, it says 'beware of sleep'" Naruto said in confusion.

Asuma had seen it and his eyes widened, "That's Shikamaru's handwriting" he said. Ino and Chouji immediately crowded him, looking at the paper as well. "But why didn't he just tell it to me. Why did he write a note?" Naruto asked, really confused.

"_**Because he wrote it after"**_ he heard echoing in his head, "After? Kyuubi?" Naruto asked. Everyone looked up at that. _**"Correct, he wrote it after he was taken, the boy put it in your pocket when you were copying the last symbol"**_ Kyuubi said.

"That's not possible, Shikamaru wouldn't have been able to do that without me noticing. Besides, he wouldn't have kept hidden like that in the first place" Naruto argued.

"_**You did not see him, because you do not have my eyes" **_Kyuubi said. "What the hell do your eyes have to do with seeing Shikamaru or not seeing Shikamaru you stupid fox?" Naruto demanded, getting pissed off that Kyuubi wasn't just coming out and saying something.

There was a long pause. _**"You didn't see him, because you do not have the eyes to see the dead" **_Kyuubi finally said.

* * *

* * *

For clarification purposes I'd like to explain that at the beginning the spirit was able to possess only those who are weak, or at night when he is stronger. He was able to possess Naruto during the day because lack of sleep had made it easy for him to bypass Naruto's defenses. The Kyuubi wasn't blocking it out before but now is so Naruto cannot be possessed, even at night.

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Naruto=not mine

* * *

_Last Time_

**"You did not see him, because you do not have my eyes"**_ Kyuubi said. "What the hell do your eyes have to do with seeing Shikamaru or not seeing Shikamaru you stupid fox?" Naruto demanded, getting pissed off that Kyuubi wasn't just coming out and saying something._

_There was a long pause. _**"You did not see him, because you do not have the eyes to see the dead"** _Kyuubi finally said._

"What do you mean, by that?" Naruto asked slowly after a long silence. _**"I mean exactly what I said, the boy's spirit gave it to you**_**"** Kyuubi told him. Naruto looked up to see everyone watching him expectantly.

Naruto opened his mouth to tell them what the Kyuubi had said before stopping himself. Especially with the expectant looks on Chouji and Ino's faces, he couldn't break it to them that their teammate and Chouji's best friend was dead.

"I need to report what I found to Kyuubi, I'll be a while" he said, immediately dropping into his mindscape before the flood of questions started.

"**Stupid kit just tell them and be done with it" **Kyuubi growled out when he arrived. The tears which had threatened to fall before now did, "You don't get it, he was one of my best friends. I can't tell them, not now" Naruto cried, wiping his tears away.

Kyuubi rolled his eyes, **"Enough with the sobbing. I need you to get out of here, go out into the village tonight while the others are asleep"** Kyuubi told him. Naruto sniffled a bit but nodded. "What do I have to do?" he asked.

Kyuubi explained it to him and Naruto slowly left the mindscape and noticed that it was now completely dark out. The rest of the group, save for Sasuke and Asuma, was asleep. "What happened?" Asuma asked softly. "Kyuubi had to talk to me," Naruto said.

"I meant what were you saying about Shikamaru?" Asuma asked. Naruto squirmed under his gaze and lifted his shirt, sliding his hand underneath and putting a bit of chakra into the Kyuubi seal. Asuma and Sasuke had both looked at each other in alarm a second before Kyuubi's chakra spread throughout the room.

Slowly their eyes closed as they joined the rest of the group in sleep.

"Shikamaru warned me about not sleeping" Naruto mentioned to Kyuubi as he raided everyone's bags and pockets for useful things. _**"I don't care what that human says, something's wrong here. That boy shouldn't have been able to be killed until the full moon unless it was by the hand of someone from your group. The spirit can only influence actions, not take them"**_ Kyuubi growled.

"So you're saying someone here killed Shikamaru?" Naruto asked in realization. He felt a nod from the demon. _**"That is the only explanation, I don't know how he pulled it off though"**_ Kyuubi admitted.

"What do we need to do tonight?" Naruto asked. _**"You need to learn the village layout. Go everywhere that you can. The symbols will be too difficult to spot and I won't have you using a light, it attracts the spirit. While you're moving around I need you to take note of the location of everything, try and memorize the layout"**_ Kyuubi instructed.

"Why?" Naruto asked in confusion. Kyuubi sighed, _**"Because there's a better chance of running away when the man enters the village, now hurry"**_ Kyuubi barked.

"Got it, I'm going" Naruto grumbled, setting out on the task. He started out and was over halfway done with the village and the sun had just started coming up when something tapped him on the shoulder.

Naruto turned to look into the angry face of Kakashi. "Hey, I'm sorry I broke your rule and went out on my own, but I had to do something" Naruto said nervously. He became even more nervous when Kakashi took a few steps forward and a small bit of light from the moon showed his visible eye, completely white.

"You" Naruto said in shock. There was no reply from the man possessing Kakashi as he raised his fist and struck Naruto hard, sending him into the side of a building. Naruto groaned as he tried to pick himself up, only to have Kakashi reappear next to him and launch him up into the wall again.

Naruto cried out in pain as Kakashi started to apply pressure.

"_**I think I realized what he meant by warning you not to sleep, get out of there kit"**_ Kyuubi cried. Naruto nodded, but it was easier said than done. The second he moved the pressure from Kakashi's foot holding him to the wall increased.

Naruto was finally able to get a hand to his pocket and pulled out a kunai, slicing at Kakashi's foot. Kakashi yelped in pain and pulled away, nearly falling over. He dropped Naruto.

"_**Run, now"**_ Kyuubi ordered. Naruto nodded, not needing to have been told, and started running as fast as he could away from Kakashi.

"Any ideas on getting it out of him?" Naruto asked as he ran_. __**"First don't die, second, wait until dawn. It shouldn't be able to hold form inside that body after that"**_ Kyuubi said. "Right, like how he shouldn't be able to kill my friend" Naruto snarled.

"_**Don't take that tone with me human, it is not possible unless one of your friends killed him. Now stop arguing with me and run"**_ Kyuubi growled.

"Right" Naruto said, concentrating on his getaway. He skidded to a halt when Kakashi appeared in front of him.

"Sensei, are you in there?" Naruto called, trying to get Kakashi's attention. His answer was an attempted kick from the man and a scratch from a kunai.

"Ow, damn it, sensei, listen to me" Naruto screamed.

"_**Kit, you need to run again"**_ Kyuubi said. Naruto shook his head, "I can't, he'll attack me from behind" Naruto responded.

The next attack Kakashi managed to send Naruto flying into the air and Naruto landed several feet away on his back.

He coughed harshly and pushed himself up. Kakashi was coming towards him again and Naruto decided to attack this time, launching himself at the jounin and planting his feet on the man's chest. Naruto could immediately tell that this wasn't Kakashi he was fighting at all.

There were many reasons for this, the main being that Kakashi was thrown off his feet and landed painfully on his back. Had it been Kakashi in control then he would have stood there and probably caught the oncoming assault.

Naruto took this time to start running again, this time he was attempting to lead the man away from his friends. Naruto didn't want to lose any more of them.

"_**You have another ten minutes before dawn"**_ Kyuubi told him. Naruto nodded, once more forced to stop as Kakashi blocked the street he was using.

The man was getting better at using Kakashi's body it seemed because he sidestepped Naruto's next attack like it was nothing and struck him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

Naruto collapsed to his knees and gasped for breath, seeing a kunai out of the corner of his eye. He moved to try and intercept it, failing and waiting for the final blow to come, it never did and Naruto turned to see Kakashi struggling with something Naruto couldn't see.

Kakashi managed to throw it off of him for a moment and lunge at Naruto before he was pulled back once again.

"_**It's that boy"**_ Kyuubi said. "Shikamaru?" Naruto asked in disbelief.

Kakashi was still struggling and seemed to be choking a bit. Slowly his struggles died down and Kakashi fell limp, black wisps leaving his body and dissipating.

"Is that really you Shikamaru?" Naruto asked, moving towards his sensei to check on him. Something pressed into his hand and Naruto opened it, reading it and almost laughed. 'What part of beware of sleep did you idiots not understand?' it asked.

"I guess the not sleeping part, are you alright?" Naruto asked. Another note was pressed into his hand moments later. 'I feel strange, I felt really, really tired, and closed my eyes for a minute. I noticed that nobody was around so I found sensei and tried to talk to him, but he ignored me, all of you ignored me. I take it I'm dead' the note read.

Naruto felt a tear fall down his cheek, "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, how did you die?" Naruto asked. The wind suddenly picked up and Naruto was no longer able to sense Shikamaru anywhere near him.

Naruto wanted to search the village for his friend, struggling to his feet quickly.

He stopped when coughing alerted him to the fact that his sensei was waking up. "Are you alright?" Naruto asked going to him and kneeling down next to him; he would have to wait to go after Shikamaru. He had no idea where to search anyway.

Kakashi nodded, "I'm fine, I feel like I met up with a powerful ninja, but other than that fine" Kakashi said, panting. Naruto felt a bit happy at that, knowing it was him, with some help from Shikamaru, that had beaten Kakashi. **"**_**Not him… name..ss .ne"**_ Kyuubi told him voice fading out until Naruto could no longer hear him.

Naruto frowned in confusion but helped his sensei to his feet. "What happened Naruto?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto filled him in on everything. Kakashi sighed, visible eye sad. "I had a feeling something like that had happened" he said, referring to Shikamaru, "You said he can communicate with us though?" Kakashi asked. Naruto nodded, "But he might not now, he disappeared while I was talking to him" Naruto told him.

"Keep this between us for now, as much as I hate to keep his team out of the loop right now we need to focus on solving this mystery and we can't have them mourning their friend" Kakashi said. Naruto nodded, "I can't tell them anyway, it would upset them so much" he said.

Kakashi leaned on Naruto for support and soon they reached their makeshift camp from the night before.

* * *

Author's Note: Sorry for the really long wait. I've been getting a lot of homework plus a lot of computer trouble with my laptop, plus I tend to procrastinate. I'm on Spring Break now so I've got some more time. This chapter was sort of short, but I'm planning on putting out another one sometime this week since this story hasn't been updated in a while. As for pairings, I will write pairings, but not in this story because they don't really fit.

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Naruto = not mine

_Last Time_

_"Keep this between us for now, as much as I hate to keep his team out of the loop right now we need to focus on solving this mystery and need everyone focused on that" Kakashi said. Naruto nodded, "I can't tell them anyway, it would upset them so much" he said._

_Kakashi leaned on Naruto for support and soon they reached their makeshift camp from the night before._

* * *

"They're fine" Kurenai called to the others, relief evident in her voice. She'd been standing in the doorway when Kakashi and Naruto had arrived. The rest of the group all moved to the door, and some who had been outside just starting to search came to greet them.

"Where were you? Sasuke-kun and I were worried sick" Sakura shouted, shaking her fist at them threateningly. Sasuke stood behind her looking like he couldn't care less. Naruto opened his mouth to respond and Kakashi fixed him with a stern gaze, reminding him to keep keep some things a secret. Naruto nodded and explained everything, leaving out Shikamaru's involvement.

"Come on both of you, let's get your injuries looked at" Kurenai said, all of them ignoring Naruto's disregard for the rules until they were in a better capacity to decide on a suitable punishment for him.

"So we didn't get breakfast because we were worried about you, but we'll get something now and then start immediately" Asuma said, glaring at Naruto a bit because he knew Naruto had knocked him out. Naruto gave him a sheepish look before moving to hide next to Kakashi.

"Enough you two, we should go over everything we have one last time, we only have until nightfall to figure this thing out" Kurenai said.

"Right, everyone set out your things in the middle of the room," Kakashi instructed, ignoring Asuma's request for breakfast. As long as it was light out they could get food anytime and planning was the most important thing right now. Each item was pulled out. The red orb Chouji had found, the amulet Ino had, the orb filled with some sort of oil that Asuma had gotten, the clear stone, the candles, and the coins were placed in the center of the group.

"Don't forget Naruto's jewelry" Kiba said, giving him a mocking smirk. Naruto glared and started to leap for him but Kakashi caught him around the stomach and pushed him back into his seat. "Stay here Naruto, we'll all die if we're fighting" Kakashi reprimanded him. Naruto pouted but complied.

Kiba kept his mouth shut for the rest of the time, opting to pet Akamaru while listening to everyone talk.

"We know that most of these were used in the ritual, what we don't know is what for. Shikamaru was able to explain the candles, this glass looking stone was on the ceiling, and Naruto says the oil was lit on fire. But that's all we know" Asuma recapped.

"We also know that Naruto knows more than us" Ino pointed out. "True, would you be willing to share your findings now Naruto?" Kakashi asked his student. Naruto shook his head, "I haven't finished, and besides I'm not supposed to share" Naruto said firmly.

"The spirit can possess people, and use genjutsu presumably" Shino added.

Naruto shook his head at that, "Kyuubi says that the genjutsu weren't caused by the spirit, they were caused by something else," he said. Everyone's attention snapped towards him, this being the first they'd heard about it. "What do you mean the spirit didn't cast them? Then what did dobe?" Sasuke asked, getting irritated with Naruto constantly having information he didn't.

Naruto shrugged, "I don't know, but Kyuubi says that the spirit can't do it" Naruto said. "Though he says a lot of things that make me think he doesn't know what he's talking about" he muttered under his breath.

"Naruto, focus on this, we need to know if anything else was used in the ritual" Kakashi ordered. Naruto looked over everything. "This was around the woman's neck" Naruto said finally, picking up the thing Shikamaru had given to Ino.

"Is that all?" Kakashi pressed, causing Naruto to glare at him, "This isn't easy, I'd like to see you try it" Naruto growled, turning back to the objects in front of him. "I don't know about this, but I saw someone with it in my dream" Naruto pointed to the red orb from Chouji's bag.

"What were they using it for?" Kurenai prompted when Naruto said nothing else. Naruto frowned, "I don't know what. They bought it in my dream the shopkeeper was glad and said that since ghosts didn't exist then there was no point for him to have it. The woman got mad at him and when she left everything in the shop broke" Naruto recounted.

"But you don't remember if it was used in the ritual or not" Kakashi repeated and Naruto shook his head, "Sorry" he said apologetically. "What about the coins?" Shino questioned. "They were an offering I think" Naruto said, thinking hard about it.

"The oil in the orb?" Kurenai asked. Naruto shook his head, "I don't know, maybe it was the watery stuff" he guessed. Everyone sighed, "Well, we need to get started, same groups as before, come on" Kakashi said.

Naruto continued his trek around the village and soon found all the symbols. By lunch he was working with his team on the search.

While he was eating he felt Kyuubi's chakra start to move around angrily. Naruto frowned and slipped into his mindscape quickly. "What?" Naruto asked. Kyuubi snarled at him, **"What do you think you're doing, I said show me the symbols when you're finished, not hang around with your team"**

Naruto glared, "Excuse me for not bowing down to your every order" he said mockingly. Kyuubi shook his head, muttering about stupid humans. He then cleared his throat, **"Now that you have these symbols I need you to start getting ready for the ritual"** Kyuubi said.

There was a moments silence before Kyuubi's ears flicked back in pain. "What the hell do you mean get ready for the ritual? You're supposed to be stopping it, not creating it" Naruto shouted loudly. **"Shut up, you're too loud brat"** Kyuubi growled.

The fox sat down regarding Naruto for a moment. **"The ritual was done only partially last time. The reason the spirit keeps coming into this world is because the gateway was never closed completely when he left the first time. The ritual was interrupted before the human had a chance to complete all the elements. Had you gotten here before it had been opened two months ago you could have closed it, but now you cannot close it until the ritual is completed."** Kyuubi started, only to be cut off by Naruto.

"Why can't I close it?" he shouted. Kyuubi's ears flicked back again.

"**Stop shouting! You can't close it because the ritual never included a way to send the spirit back to another realm, only allowed it to enter this one. Now back to the instructions, as soon as the sun starts to set a barrier will come up around the village. You won't be able to leave, but nobody will be able to enter either. From there I'll talk you through the summoning and you'll need to survive the night with the spirit"** Kyuubi told him.

Naruto smirked, "Easy, I could have beat him up when he was inside Kakashi-sensei if I'd wanted to hurt sensei too" he said. Kyuubi sighed and shook his head, **"That was not the spirit's own body and he had no practice controlling it. Tonight he'll be much stronger and you'll have to be extremely careful"** Kyuubi warned.

Kyuubi continued to discuss things with Naruto and finally the blonde was pushed back out into the real world. "What?" Naruto asked in surprise, noting he was with Kakashi, Sakura, and Shino and nobody else was around. "It's almost nightfall Naruto, you were out for a long time" Kakashi told him.

"Damn it" Naruto hissed, turning to Kakashi. "Did you figure out how to stop it?" Naruto asked. Kakashi looked away and shook his head, "We haven't found anything Naruto" he said regretfully.

Naruto nodded and got up from where he'd been lying. "Come on, we need to clear the village, try and run" Naruto said. "But the ghost-" Sakura started. "It doesn't matter, he's right, we're in more danger here, we'll have a better chance running" Kakashi cut her off and he got up from where he was seated.

"Get all the teams here, we're going to get out of here as soon as possible" Kakashi ordered and the three genin took off to do just that.

"Are you sure Kakashi?" Asuma asked when he got there with his group and everything had been explained. Kakashi nodded, "We don't have any other options at this point, we'll be attacked soon" he said. "Everyone leave everything you found here, Kyuubi says he might be able to follow the feel of the objects. I'll keep the bracelet because I can't get it off, but everything else stays here" Naruto told them.

Instead of protesting that the dead last was giving them orders they complied, all afraid for the night to come, though not knowing what Naruto had in store for them.

The sun was starting to lower in the sky, "Come on, hurry" Naruto called, making his way towards the path they'd entered at. Everyone followed him quickly, not too worried about having left some of their stuff behind with how quickly they had to move.

They crossed the barrier and Naruto stopped, placing his hands on his knees and feigning a need to catch his breath. Kakashi skidded to a stop, "Naruto, come on" he shouted. Naruto nodded, making it look as though he would follow, but instead of moving towards the group as he'd been expected, Naruto hurried into the village.

"No" Kakashi shouted, running in time to be stopped by something keeping him out. "Damn it" Kakashi shouted, banging on the thing with his fists.

"Sensei, what's he doing?" Ino asked worriedly. "I don't know, but it looks like he's going to try and fight the thing" Asuma said in disbelief.

"That idiot, he's going to get himself killed" Sakura growled angrily, kicking the barrier.

* * *

Author's Note: Sorry for not posting when I said I would. My computer decided that it didn't want to allow me access to the internet but now it's back from the computer doctor and is working just fine.

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: Naruto=not mine

* * *

_Last Time_

_"No" Kakashi shouted, running in time to be stopped by something keeping him out. "Damn it" Kakashi shouted, banging on the thing with his fists._

_"Sensei, what's he doing?" Ino asked worriedly. "I don't know, but it looks like he's going to try and fight the thing" Asuma said in disbelief._

_"That idiot, he's going to get himself killed" Sakura growled angrily, kicking the barrier._

* * *

Naruto had gathered all the items and brought them to the house in which the ritual was started one hundred years ago.

He placed some ninja wire he'd swiped from Sasuke through the small holes in the stone and climbed onto a chair, placing it on a small hook he hadn't previously noticed. Kyuubi had said it would have had to be there otherwise the ritual wouldn't have been able to start.

Naruto set out the candles and lit them quickly with the lighter he'd swiped from Asuma when he'd knocked the man out.

The coins that he and Kakashi had collected were placed in the direct center of the diagram as an offering to the spirit.

Naruto took the round glass orb filled with the liquid and set it on the floor. He unscrewed the cap and set it carefully on the floor and took off his shirt, picking up the ob and pouring a small bit of oil into his hand. The amulet Ino had received went around his neck.

Naruto placed some oil over it and then the rest in a wide circle on his chest.

He took the red orb Chouji had found, which was actually a gazing crystal according to Kyuubi, and dumped oil on it and then he placed some on the bracelet.

"_**Hurry it up kit"**_ Kyuubi growled. Naruto nodded and sat down on the Blood Moon in the center.

"_**Good, repeat after me"**_ Kyuubi started on the incantation, read from the symbols Naruto had found.

Halfway through the barrier solidified. Before it had refused entrance and exit to the living, now it also refused the exit of the spirit.

Kyuubi had explained that if they lost tonight then the barrier would be as it had before, still allowing the spirit to go through it and it would still be able to track down Naruto's friends, hoping that this incentive would be enough to cause Naruto to fight as hard as he could.

The symbols and Kyuubi's words continued to flash through Naruto's minds until everything went silent.

Naruto frowned when nothing happened and only a sharp growl from Kyuubi kept him where he was.

Nothing happened for several minutes before Naruto noticed the crystal on the ceiling was lighting up, glowing white and giving off a ton of light. _**"Here he comes" **_Kyuubi said.

Naruto winced as the next second the oil on his chest changed color, turning a dark black.

The same dark essence he'd felt when Kakashi had been knocked out flowed out through his stomach. Naruto clenched his teeth as the pain became almost unbearable.

Suddenly the pain stopped completely, as if it had never happened. "Well, are you the boy I have to thank for completing my ritual?" a voice asked in a deathly calm tone. Naruto looked up to see the man as he appeared in his mindscape, though he was faded quite a bit, as if he was only partially there.

"Well, speak boy, are you the one I have to kill for restricting my movements, and lessening the number of souls I get tonight?" the spirit questioned, tapping its foot impatiently.

"You won't kill me," Naruto finally spat, getting to his feet and backing towards the door.

The man laughed loudly at Naruto's proclamation. "I find it very funny, I've killed over three hundred people in one night, and one boy's going to stop me. If the fuzzball was the one I was fighting I'd be in trouble, but you're just some brat" the spirit said.

Naruto backed towards the door further while the man was talking and he noticed, rolling his eyes, "Come on, we've got hours to play, you don't want to talk first. I mean, how about that weather, perfect for bloodshed no?" he asked casually.

Naruto was getting more and more put off by the man's demeanor, how he talked so casually about killing.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked. The man raised an eyebrow. "Who am I, well, that's an interesting question. Care to have a seat while I explain? No, alright then"

"I guess it started about five hundred years ago. I was one of those bright eyed little boys that applied in the town's medical facilities, at that time it was a tent and alcohol was used as an anesthetic, good times" the man said, taking on a reminiscent look.

He shook his head as if to clear it, "well anyway, there were ten other participants, they were much less qualified than I was and I was going to get the apprenticeship to the only qualified medic in the town. You know how it turned out, I didn't get in and blah, blah, blah. So anyway, a girl named Hoshi got the internship I so desperately wanted, but I had a plan.

"My interest lay in the human body, more specifically its tolerance to intense pain. So one night I invited Hoshi out for a walk, drugged her, and when she woke up I proceeded to test my skills as a doctor, prolonging her suffering as long as I could. She only lasted a day and I deemed myself a failure. I knew I only needed practice, so I borrowed animals, children, wives, sometimes town officials, and practiced. Finally I found the perfect torture method" he said with a wide smile.

"Can you guess what it was?" the spirit asked. Naruto didn't have to guess, "That's right," the man said, not giving Naruto time to answer, "Pulling off the skin and removing the eyes, though I found removing the nails and making small slits on the muscles, not enough to kill but enough to cause damage to be quite entertaining as well, the screams you know"

"_**Kit, this man's crazier than a tanuki in heat, keep him busy as long as you can and then get out of here when he's done"**_ Kyuubi said. Naruto gave what he hoped was an inward nod to the demon.

"Well, as you can imagine the first serial killer to strike a town is pretty big, they started calling me The Shadow, pretty cool name. Anyway, they spent five months trying to catch me, and every day I would walk right up to the law enforcement, the only guy in the town with a rifle it turned out, and would smile at him, ask him for news, and give him some of my mom's fresh baked cookies" the man said, grinning maniacally.

"Didn't have a mom, and I hoped he like the secret ingredient, the dark meat's the best if I do say so myself" at that Naruto had to resist the urge to vomit. _**"What? He's right kit" **_Kyuubi growled. _"He's talking about eating humans, would you eat another demon?"_ Naruto asked. _**"No, point taken"**_ Kyuubi fell silent.

"It was that damn dog that did it, started barking his head off outside my house and the neighbors came to investigate. That woman was my last kill, well, aside from the dog that ratted me out. Back in those days hanging was the way to get rid of someone who broke the law like they said I had done, before they could I spoke with a witch who was also my cell mate. I explained things to her and she agreed to help me get revenge on this happy little town. She linked my spirit to a summoning ritual so that when I died I would be able to be summoned. She gave the summoning instructions to her granddaughter who passed them down until someone allowed me to exact my revenge" the man finished.

Naruto was staring at him when he finished talking, muscles tense and ready to run. "Any questions for me before my game begins?" the man questioned. "How do you know Kyuubi?" Naruto asked.

"_**Don't ask"**_ Kyuubi said at the same time the man did. Naruto blinked at the double response and slowly nodded.

The man clapped his hands together, Naruto wondered why he didn't have giant claws like he had in his mindscape but shook it off when the man spoke. "It's been fun reminiscing, but we really should get started" he said with a grin. His teeth were normal as well, the only thing the same was his eyes.

Naruto took a step back, "I have another question" he said, making the man stop and tilt his head curiously. "Why were you giving me all those warnings if you wanted to kill me?" he asked.

The spirit looked at him in confusion before his eyes took on a look of understanding and he laughed, "I didn't do any such thing, I wouldn't attempt to help you escape me, though now that I think about it I would have fun raising your hopes and then crushing them. No, the warnings were from ghosts who have yet to be devoured by me"

"One more question, what's your name?" Naruto asked. The man smiled, "I'm pretty much your god here, so call me Kami" he said.

Naruto's eyebrow rose and then his eyes widened as a knife materialized out of the black essence, flying straight towards him. He managed to get out the door and put his back to the wall before it had hit.

"_**Move"**_ Kyuubi roared, seconds before the wall was torn to pieces and the man reached for him through the remaining wood.

"He's fast" Naruto panted, barely dodging and moving back as the man moved. _**"That's what I was saying, he's incredibly dangerous when summoned, you can't fight him one on one, you'll have to run and ambush him"**_ Kyuubi explained.

Naruto nodded, "Traps" he muttered, running and taking a left and heading down the alley he'd visited earlier when getting the bracelet. Before the end he squeezed through a small opening he'd seen, making it onto another street.

He looked to see a streetlight and climbed it immediately, pulling out a kunai and a bit more of Sasuke's ninja wire, tying it to the post.

He leapt down just as the spirit entered his sight. "What are you doing, I'm giving you plenty of time to hide yourself, and here I find you're actually waiting for me to kill you," he said with a mock disappointed sigh and came closer.

Naruto could see that his form was more solid now, he was no longer able to see through him. Naruto backed, keeping his eye on the man as he came closer.

"Just hold still, it'll be over in a second if you don't struggle" he said, noting Naruto's expression he grinned widely, displaying his jagged teeth, "You're right, I'll torture you through the night, since you're my only victim" he amended.

Naruto gritted his teeth and when the man was in position he launched another of his kunai up, straight at the ninja wire, snapping it and grinning when the weapon hit its mark.

He stopped when the man started laughing. "You thought that it would, oh my, it seems Kyuubi hasn't explained the concept of spirits to you. I'm already dead, you can't kill me"

His body flickered and he appeared right in front of Naruto, throwing him back several feet.

"_**Kit, the lighter"**_Kyuubi growled. Naruto winced, moving his arm towards his pocket as fast as he could. He pulled the lighter out and created a flame. The man had been reaching for him and he drew his hand back quickly.

It seemed the flame did burn him. _**"Good, go"**_ Kyuubi said. Naruto pulled himself to his feet and started running again.

"_How much more time?"_ Naruto asked_. __**"You've been fighting him for less than half an hour kit, until dawn you've got six hours"**_ Kyuubi said grimly. Naruto nearly groaned but refused to give up, continuing his run.

* * *

Outside the gate back-up had arrived. "What's happening my youthful rival?" the newly arrived jounin asked. Kakashi looked over at the group. "They sent a genin team as back-up?" he asked in confusion, then shook his head, "Oh well. The village is under attack, more specifically something's attempting to kill Naruto. We're locked out and Naruto's fighting it" he said.

"What do you mean locked out?" the voice of Tenten asked, moving forward and walking into the barrier before backing up, "Oh"

"You said one person is fighting, but you're two lower than the numbers given to us" Hyuuga Neji said, looking over the group. "Shikamaru went missing two days ago" Chouji said quietly.

Gai tensed "What happened to him exactly?" he questioned. "He knew a lot about the Blood Moon Ritual and that's why we're thinking he was taken. Also," Kakashi hesitated.

"What?" several of them asked. Kakashi looked away, "When I was possessed by the spirit Shikamaru was the one to knock me out, neither Naruto nor I could see him, he's a ghost" Kakashi said.

The silence hung heavily in the air.

* * *

"_Now how much longer?"_ Naruto asked. _**"You've been fighting for forty-five minutes, nowhere near done. I'll tell you when you're nearing the end, so focus on the fight and stop asking" **_Kyuubi growled.

Naruto nodded, skidding to a halt and setting up one of his favorite classroom traps using exploding tags in place of needles like he normally would have.

He slid into the shadows and waited. _**"Shit, run"**_ Kyuubi snarled. Naruto frowned in confusion but the next second arms wrapped around him tightly.

"Looks like our fun's over" the spirit whispered to him. The claws had now appeared and dragged across his chest.

Naruto yelped and sliced through the offending hand with a kunai. The spirit's hand vanished, turning to black energy. Since he'd been released Naruto ran straight through his trap, the man following close behind. Naruto preformed the hand seals quickly and the tags activated.

Behind him he heard the spirit shout and when he turned it was just in time to see the black energy floating around in the air.

"_**Good, now get out of here"**_ Kyuubi ordered when Naruto stayed and watched.

Naruto nodded, _"Cutting off the man's hand worked, and he seemed to get hurt, does he become more humanlike over the night?"_ Naruto asked. Kyuubi didn't answer for a moment.

"_**I don't know, it's possible"**_ he finally said. "I need a yes or no, if I want to fight against him directly I have to know" Naruto complained aloud.

"Then don't fight him directly" he heard behind him and spun around.

* * *

Author note: Sorry for the really long wait. I couldn't upload anything over the summer, and I really wanted to focus on my classes. Plus the dorms didn't allow me to access this site. Once again, I'm really sorry.

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	14. Chapter 14

Author's Note: Really sorry about the long wait. No excuses really, I just sort of lost interest in it. I hope to finish it this summer though.

Disclaimer: Naruto=not mine

* * *

_Last Time_

_Naruto nodded, "Cutting off the man's hand worked, and he seemed to get hurt, does he become more humanlike over the night?" Naruto asked. Kyuubi didn't answer for a moment._

_ **"I don't know, it's possible"** he finally said. "I need a yes or no, if I want to fight against him directly I have to know" Naruto complained._

_ "Then don't fight him directly" he heard behind him and spun around._

* * *

"Shikamaru?" Naruto asked in confusion. Shikamaru nodded.

He was definitely a ghost from what Naruto could guess a ghost would be. He didn't walk, more like glided over the ground, though he still took steps as if he was walking. His body also flickered constantly. Naruto had no idea how he could see him now, and not before though.

"I figured you could use some help" Shikamaru said, giving a tight smile.

"Are you okay?" Naruto asked. Shikamaru shook his head, "Not really, I'm supposed to be arguing with Ino right now and joking around with Chouji" he said, smile faltering and falling.

Naruto winced, "How are you going to help?" he asked, getting to the point before the spirit showed up again.

Shikamaru pointed to the necklace around Naruto's neck.

"The spirit can't touch that because it was used to summon him. I got it for you because it was necessary for the ritual. The bracelet's the same. The gazing crystal's called the All-Seeing-Demon Eye, it has the same powers. If you hold them against the man they'll burn him, but they work less and less as the night continues" Shikamaru explained.

"As for the fight I'll fight him and keep him distracted since I don't want you dying too" he finished.

Naruto nodded and then looked away from Shikamaru, biting his lip.

"What?" Shikamaru asked, rolling his eyes at Naruto's behavior. "I'm sorry you died, this is all my fault" Naruto muttered.

Shikamaru attempted to slap him upside the head, only to have his hand go through him. "Idiot, it's that spirit's fault, now come on, we have to keep moving or he'll find us" Shikamaru ordered.

"_**Agreed kit, keep running until sunrise. You need to get to the place you preformed the ritual by that time though"**_ Kyuubi said. Naruto was about to shout that he knew what he was doing when Shikamaru stopped in his tracks, falling to his knees.

"Are you alright?" Naruto asked in concern, getting to his friends side.

"I feel sick" Shikamaru told him, "Can ghosts feel sick?" he asked.

"_**That's not possible" **_Kyuubi muttered to himself incredulously, earning questions from Naruto which he didn't answer.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow when Naruto didn't respond for a moment, wiping imaginary sweat off his forehead, "I'm fine, let's keep going" he said, panting slightly and rising to his feet.

Shikamaru led Naruto to the underground home Sasuke and Shino had found. "What is this?" Naruto asked.

"Shhh, we don't want him to hear us, this is where some of the spirits that don't get devoured by him go.

There are a few that he kills but doesn't eat, like that little girl with the doll, and the man in the alley" Shikamaru explained, stepping carefully due to habit when he would have been able to go right through most of the stuff he avoided.

"How do you know all this?" Naruto asked.

"I figured it out when I woke u… I mean, after I died. The bodies that were possessed weren't a threat to us, neither was the doll that showed Hinata that vision. They were trying to help us. The man was after me and some of the ghosts here saved me and explained things" Shikamaru told him, finally stopping where the tunnel-like path opened into a slightly bigger but still small space with the furniture and drawing that Shino and Sasuke had described.

"So he can't find us here?" Naruto asked.

"No, he can" a voice said. Naruto turned to see the little girl from his vision standing there.

In this light she looked so much like Hinata that Naruto would have trouble differentiating between the two, had the girl's eyes not been dark blue. In addition she was about five or six years younger than the Hyuuga heiress.

"He's not allowed to when the moon isn't full, but when it is he can come for some of us" she explained.

"Damn it, I'm trapped now Shikamaru" Naruto half growled, half whined.

"Idiot, you need to hear some of what they have to tell you" Shikamaru said sternly, glaring at the blonde.

"Right, I'm guessing you saw that the spirit's getting stronger as the night goes on, what you don't know is that he's got a special weapon that he uses, a wakizashi. It's special because it's got several souls stored in it, one's that he's tortured in the past. If he cuts you with it, you'll be in a lot of pain because you'll feel everything they felt" the girl explained.

"Not to mention once an hour's left, if he hasn't found you yet he can see everything in the village from one location due to the eyes he's taken" a male voice added, and the man from the alley stepped out of the shadows.

"That's right, but I won't need them" they all heard snarled behind them and Naruto turned just as a blade slammed down, slicing his left arm before he could back all the way.

He screamed in pain, it felt like his organs were being pulled out one by one, and indeed that's what many of the people the spirit had tortured had gone through.

The blade came for another strike, this time the thrust went towards Naruto's heart. It was stopped by the man from the alley. "Get out of here, if you die it's over" the man shouted.

Naruto hesitated, seeing the man was struggling against the spirit, before taking off.

"Which way?" Naruto called, only to be met by silence. "Where's Shikamaru?" he asked, looking around.

_**"He's fighting, you've got three hours now, run"**_ Kyuubi said. Naruto's eyes widened at the thought that three hours had already passed.

He gripped his arm as he ran, _"Why aren't I healing?"_ Naruto shouted into his mind, _**"Quieter, and it's that damn weapon of his, I can't do anything. Here's an idea though. Try and NOT GET STABBED"**_ Kyuubi shouted back.

Naruto winced at the volume, _"Got it"_ he thought back back. The shadows were flowing around him now and he winced at the feeling.

_**"Our odds just got strengthened**_**"** Kyuubi said.

"Care to share?" Naruto asked.

_**"Those shadows, they're ghosts, like you're friend"**_ Kyuubi explained quickly. **"**_**They can't come out usually and the ones you've dealt with are the strongest. I doubt these will manifest, but they will be able to distract the spirit since he's in the realm between the living and dead at the moment"**_

"Naruto" he heard shouted, and turned towards the sound. "When did I get to the border?" Naruto asked himself in confusion. He was now looking at everyone that had come with him, as well as a few more faces.

"_**Pay attention to where you're going, there's no time to talk to them, keep going"**_ Kyuubi ordered angrily.

"Right, got it" Naruto said, turning from where he was looking a second before he was struck in the chest and sent flying. He hit the barrier hard and then fell to the ground, grunting at a strong pain in his uninjured left arm from how he landed.

"I told you I'd win" the spirit said, pulling out his wakizashi which was now stained with blood. Naruto looked up and his eyes widened in horror, the spirit noticed and smirked, "Don't worry, you're friend didn't get harmed, I'll be taking him when I'm finished with you, I wanted him to watch you suffer since he ruined my plans to do it before" he said.

The spirit kept coming closer and Naruto had nowhere to run, he was barely able to move from the pain as it was. _**"Kit, make some clones"**_ Kyuubi roared. Naruto nodded, drawing upon both his and the Kyuubi chakra to make a ton of them.

There was a large puff of smoke and when it cleared over one hundred Naruto stood there, getting ready to pummel the spirit.

The spirit looked them over and caught sight of one, face breaking into a grin, showing off his teeth. "Kyuubi, good of you to join us" he said.

Naruto frowned in confusion but his eyes widened in surprise when he saw one of his clones with fox ears, and nine tails waving behind it.

The outfit Kyuubi wore was a blood red kimono and his hair was a red orange color. His face was that of a human with another set of human ears just below the fox ears. His hands had elongated claws which he flexed in anticipation for the fight.

The Kyuubi clone stood about six feet tall, dwarfing both his container and the spirit.

"I'd be worried now, you won't make it out of this village, your tainted soul will be here for all eternity" Kyuubi snarled, showing elongated teeth.

The spirit's smile fell away. "You never were any fun, now that I think about it, let's get this over with so I can take both your souls" he said seriously, readying himself for the fight now that he thought he might have a chance of losing.

"Right, kit, run to safety" Kyuubi ordered, blocking the man's path to Naruto, along with the rest of the clones.

"Got it" Naruto said, pushing himself to his feet slowly and limping away as fast as he could go.

"You won't be able to win, that boy's part of his clones, when they fall he will" the spirit said arrogantly. "But you're fighting a tailed demon, the strongest," Kyuubi said confidently.

"And me" Shikamaru said, showing himself to be perfectly unharmed, though Kyuubi saw he was clutching his stomach and if he'd had a body he would be sweating heavily due to pain.

The man grinned before charging them.

Naruto ran to the alley he'd taken the bracelet from. Right now he just had to wait for the spirit to show. According to Kyuubi the three hours that he had left should be spent away from the place the spirit had been summoned.

It was true that the All Seeing Demon Eye was there and it could help him ward off the spirit, but he couldn't risk the place being destroyed before he could get there. He needed to have full access to the Blood Moon in the center to finish the ritual and lock away the spirit.

The fight between Kyuubi and the spirit continued, neither one of them willing to give up.

"Shikamaru, what happened to you?" Ino asked nervously from outside the barrier, calling her teammates attention away from the fight and towards the group staring at him in shock.

He winced at the expression on Chouji's face.

Shikamaru tore his gaze away from his best friend and looked back to Ino, he had not been participating in the fight because he would just be in Kyuubi's way at this point.

Shikamaru shrugged, "I don't know, one minute I was watching Sakura and Naruto argue and the next I was…" he stopped talking, immediately clutching his stomach in pain and falling to his knees, earning cries from everyone outside the barrier.

Kyuubi looked back out of the corner of his eye as he blocked a shot from the spirit to his neck.

Kyuubi's eyes suddenly widened as he fully realized what had happened to Shikamaru.

"I see you've figured it out, I've been toying with you, you never had a chance to begin with" the spirit laughed.

* * *

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	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: Naruto = not mine

* * *

_Last time_

_Kyuubi looked back out of the corner of his eye as he blocked a shot from the spirit to his neck._

_Kyuubi's eyes suddenly widened as he fully realized what had happened to Shikamaru._

_"I see you've figured it out, I've been toying with you, you never had a chance to begin with" the spirit laughed._

* * *

Kyuubi's eyes held something akin to admiration, "You've placed someone in between, that's impressive" he said, looking over Shikamaru's ghostly form in awe as pain continued to keep Shikamaru from moving.

"What's between?" Asuma asked worriedly, wanting to know what was going on with his student. Kyuubi shot him a glance before returning his gaze to his opponent. "The between is a place for things that are neither living nor dead. I should have realized it before, the boy is still alive, in something like a coma, but alive," Kyuubi explained, "I assume you've hidden the body where nobody but yourself can find it" he said calmly to the spirit.

The man grinned, nodding, "of course I have, you've only just realized that now?" he asked smugly.

Kyuubi smirked, looking from the humans to the spirit. "I've got a proposition for you then. Let my host live. You only need one kill to return on the next full moon. You can keep this boy. When you come back I'll assist you in moving past this village, to larger groups of prey" he suggested amicably.

"You can't do that, you're helping us" Sakura shouted. Kyuubi snorted, "I'm helping myself. The only thing I did not want happening was my vessel dying which would kill me as well. The boy said I suggested you leave the village, that was a lie. I wanted others to be prey instead of him, but he got stubborn and wouldn't listen" the demon explained, wondering how stupid the girl must have been to trust a demon.

A cry from Shikamaru drew everyone's attention. He was in a lot more pain now and had moved onto his side, clutching his stomach and curling up into a ball. Kyuubi looked down at him in a bored manner. "So do you agree to my offer?" he asked, turning back to the spirit with a raised eyebrow. The spirit looked as though he was thinking hard, but Kyuubi could tell he was just trying to make him sweat.

"Hurry up, the boy's dying as we speak. If he dies in spirit form then the deal is off of course since you won't be able to feed on him and will have to use my container to come back" Kyuubi snapped, never one to be patient. "Calm yourself Kyuubi, I agree to your proposition. I'll summon his body here just ten minutes before the ritual ends and eat his soul from it. I guess the only thing to do now is wait" the spirit said, taking a seat.

Kyuubi shook his head, "I will not be able to come help you until I get my vessel under control. He is too stubborn and needs to be broken a bit" Kyuubi said. "No" Shikamaru said quietly, panting heavily from the pain.

Kyuubi rolled his eyes, "you don't need to pant, you can't breathe as a ghost" Kyuubi told him in irritation.

"Now Kyuubi, don't be too hard on him, these are his last few moments after all" the spirit said, a smug look on his face, getting to his feet and brushing off imaginary dust particles from his black cloak.

Kyuubi smirked at that, "Too true, did you want to play with my container as well?" he offered amicably. The spirit laughed, "I think I would, after all, I'm an expert on pain" he responded sadistically.

They both turned to Shikamaru who looked horrible. "Don't go anywhere now, it would be a shame to have to hunt you down later" the spirit said in a mocking manner and the two walked away to find Naruto.

Naruto had no idea how long he hid, but he was getting nervous. The Kyuubi clone had not been dispelled, but Kyuubi had said himself that it was impossible to kill the spirit. He hoped that they were evenly matched at this point, and that Kyuubi was still keeping him busy. The only problem was now he didn't know when he'd have to end the ritual since Kyuubi wasn't there to tell him how much longer and his hiding place wasn't the best for determining when the sun would start to rise.

Naruto was about to leave the safety of his hiding place to find a clock of some sort when he saw red hair bobbing behind a wall as Kyuubi walked towards him. Naruto got up to go ask him about the time limit when Kyuubi turned into the alley he'd hidden in, accompanied by the spirit.

They both spotted him and a grin spread across the spirit's face.

"What the hell?" Naruto demanded, looking at Kyuubi in confusion. "New plan kit, you do as I say, the other boy dies" he said calmly, approaching his vessel.

Naruto's eyes widened in shock and he immediately launched himself at the wall behind him, trying to climb it as fast as he could. He was grabbed swiftly by the Kyuubi who let him fall roughly to the ground when he lost his grip. Naruto clenched his teeth to keep from crying out when his injuries were disturbed.

"None of that" Kyuubi told him when he tried to get up and flee out the entrance of the alley, tripping him easily and placing a foot on Naruto's back. "You can't do this, I let you use one of my clones, I…mmphh" Kyuubi silenced him tearing off a piece of the boy's jumpsuit and leaning down, shoving it into the boy's mouth.

"So much better when you're silent" Kyuubi mused, grabbing both of Naruto's hands and twisting them behind his back roughly before pulling the boy to his feet.

"Where's your workshop? I assume you have one we can play with him in" Kyuubi said, turning to the spirit. The spirit nodded, leading the way. "I haven't cleaned up in a while, nobody visits you understand. I hope you don't mind the smell" he said. The spirit led them to the house where he'd been summoned, going into a room they hadn't found during their search. This basement, like many of the others, also had a long tunnel leading to a room.

Naruto was struggling fiercely, wondering why the clone he'd made for Kyuubi wasn't dispelling and why it was powerful enough to keep him from escaping.

When they reached to door to the spirit's workshop Naruto started gagging. There was a horrible smell hanging in the air, and when the spirit opened the door Naruto nearly lost consciousness due to the odor.

"That's something I haven't smelled in a while" Kyuubi commented, breathing in deeply, and giving a sigh in what appeared to be contentment. The spirit grinned, "Put him on the table, I figured we'd start with nails, much harder to grow back. Then I figured the hair would go next if he didn't comply, not as painful, but can be when prolonged" the spirit decided.

"Fine, just remember you'll need to have him broken before dawn and kill the other one" Kyuubi cautioned. The spirit nodded, "I'll remember, it would be a shame to have all my work go to waste" the spirit replied.

They got started immediately.

* * *

"Do you have information on the ritual Gai?" Kurenai asked. Gai looked up from where he'd been watching Shikamaru writhe in pain, trying to think of a way to help him

"From what we got from Nara-sama it is used to summon only a handful of spirits and low level demons. Each summon requires a different symbol placed somewhere in the seal that matches with the spirit or low level demon. He said that this one is a spirit rather than a demon because it feeds on souls instead of human flesh. Since the spirit was out when you arrived, and even now during the full moon, instead of only the blood moon the ritual was not done correctly" Gai informed them.

"We know all that already from clues and some of Shikamaru's knowledge. Is there any way to end it completely?" Kurenai questioned. Gai frowned, and then nodded, "But we are way too late for that, we had to do it when the seal was first opened and allowed the spirit into this realm" he finally said.

"How long until dawn?" Lee asked worriedly, seeing Shikamaru starting to gasp for breath, even in his ghost form, obviously breathing was necessary for him even if Kyuubi said it wasn't. "We've got thirty minutes" Tenten said grimly.

* * *

Naruto screamed again as his next nail was removed. "I'm so glad he's got a great set of lungs, I would make it faster if he didn't scream so beautifully" the spirit said, placing the fifth nail in a dish next to him.

Kyuubi rolled his eyes. "I can still feel that he's strong enough, I need him nice and obedient by the time the ritual ends" he growled. The spirit looked at him in mild distaste, "You can't rush such a procedure Kyuubi, these things take time. Had I started earlier I would have had enough, but as things are now you'll be lucky if I can do it" he said.

Kyuubi snarled at him, "I'll do it myself then" he pushed the spirit out of the way. "You're very lucky you know, most people I devour, I'm going to let you survive, it's only fair that you do something for me in return. I'll even allow your friends to live, that's how nice I am. All you have to do is let me have your body" Kyuubi said.

"No" Naruto cried. Kyuubi grabbed onto Naruto's hand, applying pressure and making him scream again. "If you don't do as I say, then each and every one of your friends will die" Kyuubi told him again.

"Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?" Naruto demanded through clenched teeth, yelping as Kyuubi's hand brushed against where his nails had been previously. Kyuubi smirked and leaned down to whisper in his ear.

* * *

Author's note: Like I said in the last chapter I'm really sorry about the long wait. So far the plans are about a chapter a week, but it's likely that it's going to be every two weeks with my schedule.

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: Naruto= not mine

_Last Time_

_"No" Naruto cried. Kyuubi grabbed onto Naruto's hand, applying pressure and making him scream again. "If you don't do as I say, then each and every one of your friends will die" Kyuubi told him again._

_"Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?" Naruto demanded through clenched teeth, yelping as Kyuubi's hand brushed against where his nails had been previously. Kyuubi smirked and leaned down to whisper in his ear._

* * *

"Get to the seal by sunrise, I'll handle the rest" he whispered. Naruto looked at him in shock. "Kyuubi, as fun as this has been I have to get to the boy's body" the spirit said from the doorway irritably, not having heard Kyuubi. Kyuubi nodded, pulling back from Naruto, "I'll accompany you, I'm finished here" he said, giving a satisfied smirk in Naruto's direction.

For his part Naruto just lay there, panting. The spirit took that as meaning that Naruto didn't have much fight left in him, and nodded, heading out the door with Kyuubi hot on his heels.

When they left Naruto struggled against his bonds. Having his nails removed had been horribly painful, but he focused past the pain, needing to finish the ritual and save everyone. There was a huge problem though, he couldn't remove the ropes around his arms, no matter how he hard tried. The spirit seemed to be a an expert at tying the ropes tight enought to restrict movement, preventing his prey's escape.

"Need help?" a voice asked. Naruto looked up to see the little girl. "Please, I don't have much time" Naruto half begged her. She nodded, starting on the ropes, and Naruto frowned when they started to fall away. "How can you do that? Shikamaru can't touch me but he can touch things like paper and stuff" Naruto said in confusion, even as he shifted to help her as she removed the ropes from his legs.

The girl shook her head, "Those things he was moving were because he focused really hard. He shouldn't have been able to at all because he's not like the rest of us, and he's not in a body. Nii-san says it's impressive" she told him. He was about to ask who her nii-san was and what she meant, when they finished. She pulled on his arm urgently. "Hurry. You have five minutes" she urged, disappearing a moment later.

Naruto quickly shifted and pushed himself off the table, falling a couple feet to reach the ground. He staggered slightly, muscles protesting the movement. He went through the door and ran through the tunnel, vaguely wondering if he should find the architects and ask them what was up with all the tunnels and why they didn't make hallways like normal people, it would save the people a lot of time if they ever had to escape from evil spirits wanting to devour their souls.

Naruto finally reached the house where the ritual had been performed. Entering the ritual room quickly he rapidly set up the candles that had been blown out when the spirit had been summoned and lit them, gritting his teeth to keep from screaming at the pain in his hands. He then sat on the Blood Moon Symbol and applied more oil to his chest and set the All Seeing Demon Eye in his lap just in case he was attacked. He had two minutes left.

* * *

Kyuubi and the spirit had found Shikamaru where they had left him. "You listen very well, if I hadn't made the deal with Kyuubi I would take his vessel and keep you around for a little while" the spirit told the dying boy.

"Go to hell" Shikamaru gasped out. "Obviously he would have taken a bit of time to break in, now get him back in his body so you can feed, we're running late as it is" Kyuubi said irritably.

The spirit reached down, pulling up Shikamaru's shirt and touching two of the symbols he'd drawn, causing them to light up. Shikamaru screamed one last scream as he was pulled into his body.

Unlike Shikamaru's spirit his body was unconscious, though like his ghost, he was panting heavily.

"Bon appétit" the spirit said to himself and placed his hand on Shikamaru's chest, only to be thrown back from his meal a second before he could draw out Shikamaru's soul.

"So you're going to betray me for some humans" he growled, pulling himself to his feet to look at the Kyuubi incredulously, the demon's arm was still outstretched from when he'd thrown away the spirit.

"No, I'm going to keep myself safe. You always were impatient nameless one. I know my vessel and I would have been enough power to give you a body tonight and you wouldn't pass that up. In addition you were betting on your ability to eat this boy's soul. Even had you failed to kill my container you would have been able to track him back to his village and feast on mine and those souls as well in another month" Kyuubi retorted, gesturing to the people outside the barrier when he finished.

The spirit's expression hardened, he was calm when he was sure he would be able to do something, but the Kyuubi was probably going to ruin his plans and with the limited time he had left he couldn't afford to mess around.

The spirit launched himself at Kyuubi, drawing his wakizashi in the same motion. Kyuubi barely blocked the strike and it jarred both his arms. The spirit was at full strength in the last hour and as a shadow clone without his full strength, Kyuubi would definitely have trouble.

"Give up, you have three minutes" Kyuubi growled. "I know, but your container won't succeed and the process will be repeated in one hundred years, your vessel is still tied up" he said smugly.

A moment later his eyes widened in realization. "That's right you can see everything in the village now, and you aren't a safe as you thought you were, my vessel's going to finish this ritual tonight" Kyuubi told him, equally as smug.

Frantically the spirit struck at Kyuubi quickly, Kyuubi dodged as fast as he could but he was running out of chakra and slowing down.

The spirit's entire body froze for a second as Naruto lit the candles. "Can you feel that you've already lost?" Kyuubi asked, striking with his fist at the spirit only to have his chakra finally run out and the shadow clone poofed out of existence.

The spirit turned to Shikamaru and took a step forward before feeling the pull of the ritual gateway. It was too strong for him and when he went to make his next step his body flickered and he exploded into spiritual energy flowing towards the ritual room, he had one minute left.

* * *

He found Naruto already with the end of the ritual prepared. "I see you've beat Kyuubi" Naruto said, tensing when the spirit took a step forward. "How, how could you, a mere child beat me?" he asked. Naruto frowned, "Don't you have two, well, one minute left now?" Naruto asked. He had no idea how much time had passed, it felt like the set-up had taken forever.

The spirit nodded, "However, you are holding the All Seeing Demon Eye, the purification talisman, and the witch's bracelet. All three together are impossible for me to beat, I accept defeat" he said. Naruto tilted his head in confusion before smiling in relief, "So I won" he said, All Seeing Demon Eye rolling off his lap.

The spirit suddenly smirked viciously, and dove for Naruto, noticing his guard was down now. Naruto yelped as he was pushed onto his back. Claws from the man's hand raked viciously across his chest and the wakizashi was stabbed through his side. Naruto reached for a kunai, only to have his arms pinned down and claws rake across his throat. The oil on Naruto's stomach lit up again and the spirit raised the claws again to strike the final blow as he was immediately sucked into the seal.

Naruto reached up to his throat numbly, feeling blood trickle through his fingers. Slowly he slipped out of consciousness.

* * *

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	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: Naruto = not mine

Author's Note: Okay, for this chapter I had it originally in italics because it was supposed to be taking place in the past/a dream/visions. I don't know about other people, but italics bothers my eyes so I inverted everything and now all of the past/dream/vision stuff is in normal font and the present is in italics. Hopefully this way it will be easier to read. Just a couple more chapters after this one.

**Additionally, I'm thinking of making a sequel, and I would really like some suggestions for what they'll be dealing with. It would have to be something that I can research online without too much trouble. If you have something that you'd like to see Naruto go up against then mention it in your review and I'll make a poll as soon as I have a few suggestions. I'm already placing vampires and werewolves on the list since they're easy to get information on, so something aside from these would be appreciated.**

* * *

_Last Time_

_He found Naruto already with the end of the ritual prepared. "I see you've beat Kyuubi" Naruto said, tensing when the spirit took a step forward. "How, how could you, a mere child beat me?" he asked. Naruto frowned, "Don't you have two, well, one minute left now?" Naruto asked. He had no idea how much time had passed, it felt like the set-up had taken forever._

_The spirit nodded, "However, you are holding the All Seeing Demon Eye, the purification talisman, and the witch's bracelet. All three together are impossible for me to beat, I accept defeat" he said. Naruto tilted his head in confusion before smiling in relief, "So I won" he said, All Seeing Demon Eye rolling off his lap._

_The spirit suddenly smirked viciously, and dove for Naruto, noticing his guard was down now. Naruto yelped as he was pushed onto his back. Claws from the man's hand raked viciously across his chest and the wakizashi was stabbed through his side. Naruto reached for a kunai, only to have his arms pinned down and claws rake across his throat. The oil on Naruto's stomach lit up again and the spirit raised the claws again to strike the final blow as he was immediately sucked into the seal._

_Naruto reached up to his throat numbly, feeling blood trickle through his fingers. Slowly he slipped out of consciousness._

* * *

"Come on, I want to show you my secret spot" the man said with a grin, tugging on the woman's arm. "I don't know it's getting late out and there's church in an hour, not to mention I need to help with the surgeries tomorrow morning and I need to be wide awake" the girl replied, hesitating.

The man gave her a playful look, "It'll only take a moment, I promise I'll get you back in time for church, so please?" he asked charmingly. The girl still looked hesitant, but finally she gave in and nodded, allowering herself to be pulled along after him. "Good, you won't regret this Hoshi, it's just up this hill" he told her, removing his hands from his arm and grabbing her left hand with his right. He led the way.

"So where exactly is it?" Hoshi asked, tugging on her hand when they'd been walking for a few minutes, wanting to walk alongside of him rather than being pulled after him. The man said nothing, but tightened his grip, now practically dragging her. His whole demeanor had changed and Hoshi cried out in pain when he gripped her hand too tightly. "What's going on?" she asked in fear, trying to pull her hand out of his grip, but it was all in vain.

"Because you are the doctor's apprentice I cannot practice medicine as I would have liked, so since I cannot do that you are going to be my first subject," he told her, finally stopping. Screaming would do her no good, she'd tried screaming before after all, and nobody had come for her.

What worried her more was that they were no longer in view of the town. He'd dragged her up a hill, and then to the opposite side.

Only thinking of getting away, despite the terrible odds, Hoshi stomped on his foot and his grip loosened. She pulled away to start running and he immediately swept her feet out from under her. He fell with her, placing his weight on top of her to prevent her from getting away from him.

Hoshi cried out in pain and surprise as she crashed to the ground. She tried to slip out from under him, but he had a tight grip on her right shoulder as he grabbed something cloth from his pocket and attempted to unscrew a small bottle he'd also gotten out of his pocket with one hand. In the end he gave up and smashed the bottle on the ground on top of the cloth.

Hoshi screamed again as the cloth was placed roughly over her mouth and nose, his right hand holding it there. It was covered in a sweet smelling liquid and she tried not to breathe it in. She struggled for a few moments, but her lungs screamed for air and she was finally forced to take a breath. A few seconds later she went limp, the drug finally doing as the man had intended.

The man picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, walking back to the village by shadows, not that worried since everyone was already in church. The town feared witches and devils, and the church had assured them that as long as they attended the afternoon service that no harm would come to them. He wasn't sure whether or not he believed in such things, but if they existed he doubted they were anything that he would fear.

* * *

When Hoshi finally woke she was surrounded by candles and several instruments she recognized from working with the town doctor. "I see you're awake, it took you four hours to wake up, how are you feeling? Dizzy? Tired? Sick? Remember, you're helping me with my practice" the man told her calmly.

"Let me go" she mumbled weakly, the drug still clouding her mind. The man shook his head, "Answer the question, don't speak unless necessary" he requested, looking at her in slight disappointment since she wasn't cooperating.

Hoshi shook her head a bit and realized more of her surroundings. The man was sitting in a chair next to her, pen poised to start recording her responses. She was lying down on a table and her limbs were all tightly secured so she couldn't escape.

"Sick" she said finally. The man looked up from his writing and looked at her in surprise. "You're feeling sick, interesting, though expected" he mused, scribbling something down. He looked up at her, "Anything else? I didn't get to measure out the dose because you were fighting the entire time" he told her sternly.

She kept her mouth shut now and he sighed, "I suppose it wouldn't be as scientific anyway, since I wasn't able to attain the exact dosage level and cutting open your lungs would restrict the procedures, I'll just have to work with less information" he told her, setting the clipboard on the table near her, almost at eye level, and exited the room.

He left her for a few hours and then came back. "Feeling better?" he asked, feigning concern. "Yes, now let me go" she requested. She'd struggled for the entire time the man had been gone, and she couldn't loosen the bonds, or slip her hands or feet from them.

The man shook his head in reply, pulling out a small pocket knife. "Since I don't want to get any of my equipment dirty just yet I'm going to try with this instrument first" he told her.

She was about to ask what he was talking about when he thrust it into her upper arm. Hoshi screamed loudly and the man laughed, "Well, you certainly have a healthy voice, I'm sorry but you'll have to be quieter I'm afraid. The neighbors might complain" he told her, placing a rag in her mouth and taping it in.

She gave a muffled sob due to fear and pain. "Okay, let's continue shall we?" he asked, pulling back his pocket knife and placing it into her other arm in the same spot, earning a muffled scream for it.

The tests went on for three hours before she breathed her last breath, much to his disappointment. "I guess I'll have to find another test subject" he muttered in slight resignation, cleaning up the basement she'd been held in and changing his clothing to go out to greet some of his fellow townspeople.

* * *

_"Hold on Naruto, don't fall asleep, you're going to be fine" Sakura sobbed as she sat next to her teammate who was drifting in and out of consciousness, "Keep the pressure up" Kakashi ordered, sitting next to the girl and assisting with Naruto as much as he could._

* * *

"How much for this gazing crystal?" the woman in Naruto's dream asked. "Well, that there's the All Seeing Demon Eye, it's said to be able to look into the future. Forgive me for saying, but it's a load of rubbish, doesn't mean anything and I'd hate for you to waste your money on it" the man behind the counter said, watching the woman walk around the store as he polished a piece of silver dinnerware that had been brought to the store the day prior.

"I wouldn't be so sure Katsumi-san, there are many things on this earth that can't be conceived by our human minds" she told him, not wavering in her decision, placing the item on the counter in front of him. The man shook his head, "Well, if you're sure you want it the price is $30" he told her.

It had been more previously, but the people in the village weren't interested in such things, many of them fearing that if they actually worked that they were too dangerous to have around. The woman just smiled, fishing out the money and placing it on the counter. "Thank you for your business, please come again" he told her, though he sort of hoped she wouldn't, there was something he couldn't place about her, but it made him uneasy.

The woman was almost out the door when she turned back to him, giving him a feral smile. "You know Katsumi-san, my name is Himitsu Akane, my thirteen times great grandmother was the one who made this crystal by taking chakra from the Kyuubi himself, I suggest you don't discredit how powerful something like this could be in the future" she warned and walked out, snapping her fingers. She smirked as everything glass exploded inside the shop and the man yelped in surprise.

Akane made it to her home and set the gazing crystal on the ground in the Blood Moon Ritual Gate that she'd prepared and set up the summoning ritual.

When it was ready she lit the candles and sat down in the center, lifting the All Seeing Demon Eye into her lap. Just as Naruto had done she started the chant, only this time her will wavered as an unnatural wind picked up, and when it did the candles were blown over, lighting the summoning oil and spreading to cover the house.

Akane stopped chanting and got up, running out into the streets as her home continued to burn. "Somebody help" she called. People were gathering around her house, but nobody knew any ways to combat the=is fire, there was a nearby water supply, but getting it to her house would be a daunting task.

"I'll help" she heard behind her. She turned to thank the person and didn't have time to scream as her body crumpled to the ground, eyes wide and staring as people began screaming. The last sound she heard was laughter as her soul was devoured.

* * *

_"He's back" Naruto heard dimly. "Naruto, please don't die" Hinata sobbed, he heard others crying around him as he slipped back into his dreams._

* * *

"Hello Shiro-kun, are you going to hide in the bunker?" an old woman asked the young man kindly as he placed her groceries in a cloth bag for her. Shiro shook his head, "I'm sorry Mai-san, there's no way something's going to attack this village and I have to work a shift tonight" he said. The woman looked at him sadly, "It's alright that you don't believe me, I'm going to hide this somewhere safe, it's the thing that's going to save all our souls" she said, holding up a small wrinkled piece of paper with some words scribbled on it.

Shiro gave her a placating smile, "You do that Mai-san, I'll see you tomorrow" the man said as he passed her bag to her. The woman didn't immediately accept the items, she held out her hand to him, offering him something, "This should help keep you safe". He accepted it and she bid him farewell, grabbing ahold of the bag and leaving the building quickly. After that she made her way to the alley where bricks were just being placed. Shiro looked at the item he'd been given and frowned, it was a bracelet of some sort.

"I'm adding this one" Mai told the man building the wall in the alley. She'd drawn a symbol inside for cleansing, hoping that the information inside would be kept out of the spirit's grasp. Shiro watched her from inside his store, the bricks were being laid just outside his shop.

"Very well Mai-san, let's put it right here" the brick layer said, setting it into the wall and cementing several layers over it as the woman observed before she left.

She made her way to the house she'd been using and opened the hidden wall carefully, climbing into the tunnel which led under the hill Shino and Sasuke had visited. She'd moved everything she owned there, hoping that she'd be safe with the seal she'd drawn, opposite that of the one used to summon the demon all those years ago.

The clock showed an hour until nightfall when there was sound outside her bunker. She reluctantly made her way back to her home and opened the door, thinking that it might be someone who she had offered a haven to for that night.

"Mai-san, come with me" it was a village official who had requested this. Mai bit her lip in uncertainty. "I'm sorry sir, I can't leave, it isn't safe" she said finally, taking a step back into her makeshift home.

He frowned, "I'm sorry ma'am, but you cannot stay here, you haven't paid your fees and this house is no longer yours" he said, grabbing onto her arm and dragging her outside when he saw she wouldn't comply. "No, let go" she shrieked, fighting hard to escape the man's grip, terrified.

"I'm sorry ma'am, I can't, I have my orders" he told her unsympathetically, "You don't understand, we're all going to die, stop" she screamed again. "Ma'am, please calm down" the official requested, ignoring her pleas. He signaled his fellow officials to come help him and a couple started towards him.

Suddenly the woman went limp in the man's hold. "Ma'am?" he questioned, leaning down to see what was wrong. He saw she wasn't breathing and quickly got her to the hospital. "She's dead, most likely from a heart attack," the doctor explained, though that was just a preliminary report.

The official opened his mouth to say something but the lights suddenly went out all over the village and screams echoed all over.

"What's that?" the doctor asked, getting up and opening the door to the hallway outside his small lab, falling dead a moment later.

The official's eyes widened as he stared at the body for a second before he met the same fate.

Shiro had better luck than the two men, but only just. The bracelet had burned the spirit for a second and he'd been able to run. He knew he didn't have any chance to escape the thing if what he'd seen around the village was any indication, bodies covered in blood lay all over the streets and in shops.

Instead he ran for the wall where Mai had hidden the note, hoping that it would save him as she had said. The spirit got closer, and it was too fast for him. Shiro quickly threw the bracelet into the trash, knowing that this was the end because he wouldn't have time to get the brick out and hoping that someone would be able to use the bracelet and have better luck than him.

He'd nearly made it to the end of the alley when a wakizashi went straight through his back.

* * *

_"This is as good as we're going to get him, we need to get to Konoha fast, but we'll have to be careful with Naruto-kun. Shikamaru-kun looks fine from what we can tell" Gai shouted after having Neji examine both of the injured genin with his byakugan. They would have stayed there because it was going to be difficult for Naruto to survive such a trip, but none of them had any medical experience, except for Hinata who only made balms._

_Unluckily enough, the only other one with any experience was currently the unconscious Shikamaru who helped his parents make medicine, and most likely had read some obscure medical journals and would be able to do at least something had he been in the state to do anything._

* * *

"Haru, come on," the little girl cried out and turned to look back at her sister. "Slow down Haya, the grounds changed" the older girl called, concentrating on her feet as she stumbled over the rocky terrain.

"But we're going to be late, here, I'll help you" Haya carefully made her way back and began to assist Haru. "Do you have Yuri with you?" Haru asked when something soft touched her arm. "Of course, she wanted to go to the festival too" Haya told her as if it were obvious. Haru smiled, "We're here, aren't we? Go find your friends, I'll be fine here" she told her little sister. "Okay, bye" Haya shouted, racing off with her doll.

Haru felt around until she found a familiar stone wall and sat down, listening to the noises around her, eyes unseeing. She'd been blind since she'd been born, a condition which also left her with a milky white look to her eyes.

"Hello" she said when someone sat next to her. "Should have known you'd hear me" a voice laughed out, then stopped abruptly. "So how long do you have?" the man asked her seriously, voice dropping so they wouldn't be overheard. "This is my last festival, I don't think I'll make it to Haya's birthday in two months" Haru told him sadly.

She had accepted her death long before, but her sister hadn't been informed of her worsening medical condition since the doctors had started visiting her over a year prior.

Her funeral had been held three months before the death of her sister. Naruto watched the procession in his mind, noting that where Haya and Hinata had looked related aside from the eye colors, Haru and Hinata could pass as twins had Hinata been a bit older. The vision changed to show the group of ninja entering into the village.

"Here you go Haru-onee-chan, maybe you can save yourself" the ghost of Haya whispered to the shy girl, waking the doll where she'd been hiding it since her death.

* * *

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	18. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: Naruto = not mine

**Author's Note: I have the poll up in my profile. Thank you for everyone who contributed a suggestion. I didn't use all of them because I'm not sure how many people are going to be voting so I wanted to limit the choices, plus these are the only ones that really work with the setting that I have planned. Only one more chapter to go after this one.**

* * *

_Last Time_

_"This is as good as we're going to get him, we need to get to Konoha fast, but we'll have to be careful with Naruto-kun. Shikamaru-kun looks fine from what we can tell" Gai shouted after having Neji examine both of the injured genin with his byakugan. They would have stayed there because it was going to be difficult for Naruto to survive such a trip, but none of them had any medical experience, except for Hinata who only made balms._

_Unluckily enough, the only other one with any experience was currently the unconscious Shikamaru who helped his parents make medicine, and most likely had read some obscure medical journals and would be able to do at least something had he been in the state to do anything._

* * *

Naruto woke to the steady beep of monitors. He felt some pain in his throat and tried to reach up and touch it, only to realize that he couldn't move his hands. He attempted to look down at them, but found he couldn't move his head either. Dimly he wondered if he had succeeded, the last few moments of his consciousness were a blur, and there was no guarantee that the spirit hadn't gotten to Shikamaru and would be coming for them next.

"Your hands are tied up, and they used a technique to immobilize your head so you don't make your injury worse" he heard. He jumped at the voice, unable to contain the yelp that escaped him when he did so. His eyes flicked to the right and he could barely make out the form of Shikamaru leaning lazily against the door.

"You're alive" Naruto said in relief, he sounded horrible, a side effect of getting his throat torn up, he assumed. Shikamaru sighed, "Troublesome, you're the one that nearly died" he said, walking into the room and sitting in a chair at the foot of Naruto's bed so Naruto could see him. Naruto saw that he was also wearing a hospital gown and had a bit of bandaging on his arms and face, his right arm was holding the back of the gown closed.

"So everyone else lived too?" Naruto asked hopefully, though he was pretty sure that only the two of them had been in danger after he'd finished the ritual, the barrier seeming to do its job.

Shikamaru nodded, "But I wanted to ask you what happened. I mean, nobody will tell me. They said that I was knocked out for a few days. I remember searching the house with Sakura, meeting up with you and Kakashi, and then waking up here. However, if that was the case I would have been sent home a week ago" Shikamaru said, looking at Naruto expectantly.

Naruto would have tilted his head in curiosity had he been able to move his head, instead he tried to convey the emotion through his expression. "Are you sure you don't?" he asked, the boy had played a huge part in the mission's success after all.

Shikamaru nodded in reply.

"Well, then that's probably what happened, you were probably unconscious the entire time until everyone else found you" Naruto said, deciding there must be a good reason why they hadn't told Shikamaru anything, even though it was thanks to him that they had been able to work out everything in time for Naruto to do the ritual.

Shikamaru groaned and then glared at the blonde mummy, "Not you too, it's bad enough Ino's watching me like a hawk and my mom hasn't even yelled at me for calling her troublesome, but nobody will tell me why" he said in exasperation.

Naruto sighed, and then winced as the air moved through his injured throat. "Maybe it's because we really don't know. I don't know when they found you, but it was probably towards the end of the mission. Everyone's probably worried because we thought you might have been killed" he said, this at least was believable.

Shikamaru didn't believe him though, otherwise people would just have told him that to begin with, and shook his head in disagreement, "That's not it, and I will figure it out, whether you tell me or not" he promised, looking determined, getting up and leaving the room when he heard the sound of Ino shouting at the nurses for losing the lazy genius.

Naruto frowned, wondering why Shikamaru couldn't remember his time spent as a ghost. It was only a matter of time before Shikamaru figured it out though. Shikamaru was definitely lazy, and preferred to lay around rather than do pretty much anything except play shougi, but when he put his mind to something it was never a question of whether he would succeed, it was when.

Naruto gave it a couple of days tops before one of the other boy came up with a correct guess as to what had happened, and another couple weeks until he was able to confirm it, unless someone somehow convinced him to stop his search.

He wiggled his fingers experimentally, wincing when he felt his nails, or where his nails had been previously, brush up against the bandages on his left hand.

The torture Kyuubi had put him through came back to him and he took a deep breath, sinking into his mind quickly to find the Kyuubi to demand answers.

He saw the fox sleeping heavily, tails wrapped around it tightly, the demon shivered once in a while in his sleep. "Kyuubi, wake up you damn furball" Naruto shouted loudly. The fox twitched and slowly opened an eye lifting his head slightly to fully look at his container. **"Come back later, or not at all, I need to sleep"** he requested weakly with a groan at making the small movement, closing his eye again.

Naruto shook his head stubbornly, "No, I want to know why the hell you were working with the spirit" he said firmly, in a tone that told Kyuubi he wouldn't be getting any rest if he didn't answer his container. With another groan the Kyuubi shifted to fully look at the small blonde boy outside of his cage.

**"I needed to stall him so he didn't kill your friend right away. Had he succeeded he would have been able to track you here on the next full moon. Besides that idea was the best since it made me look believable and stopped him from attempting to kill you. That gave us enough time to stall so he couldn't complete his part in the ritual"** Kyuubi told him tiredly.

"Did you have to hurt me so much though?" Naruto asked, wincing when he thought of the pain.

Kyuubi shook his head, **"That was the spirits suggestion, I had to let him because since he had a hold of you he could have killed you without a second thought. This way I gained his trust a bit" **Kyuubi said, **"Otherwise I wouldn't have because no matter how fun it was, I would have had to use my chakra to heal you, as I'm doing now. So now that you have your answer leave, I'm too tired for this****" **Kyuubi growled, once again laying back down.

Naruto glared at the fox for a moment at the comment about having fun, before smiling widely at the beast, "Thanks for saving everyone" he said sincerely.

Kyuubi lifted his head again at that and regarded the boy in surprise, this time ignoring the protest his body made at the movement, **"That was an unwanted side effect, had I not been in danger I wouldn't have bothered"** he told his vessel.

Naruto shook his head still smiling, "No, you could have stuck with the plan, you had about ten minutes and I'm sure you could have kept me safe for that long and let Shikamaru get eaten, but you didn't, you made sure Shikamaru lived" he said happily.

"**Stupid boy, let me out and I'll prove to you that I care nothing for you or your friends" **he snarled, pulling himself to his feet and throwing his chakra around outside the cage, despite the pain that Naruto could see it was causing him, and that it took his concentration off of healing the boy in front of him.

Naruto tensed at the feeling but his smile just widened after a moment, "Whatever you have to tell yourself" he said and gave an uncharacteristic smirk before exiting his mindscape.

"**You stupid human, let me out so I can kill you all"** Kyuubi roared after him.

Naruto opened his eyes to see the nurse standing above him and he would have jumped at her presence had he not been immobilized further. "I see you're awake, are you in any pain?" the woman asked briskly. Naruto tried to shake his head and then clenched his teeth in frustration, disliking the lack of mobility he had currently.

"No, when can I leave?" he whined.

The woman shrugged, "As long as you heal at the rate you have been then it will be another few days at least, the injury in your side and one of the scratches on your chest are still present. We were able to take care of several of the gashes on your chest and your neck, but we couldn't fully heal your neck and it will take a couple more sessions before it's closed up, and another couple after that to make sure it won't get infected and another day to deal with the scar if you want. We'll also be attempting to grow back your nails as soon as those are taken care of" she explained.

"What about the rest of my friends?" he asked curiously. "They're all in much better shape. Hyuuga Hinata was hospitalized for a brief amount of time due to the genjutsu placed on her, she's out of the hospital. Hatake Kakashi was also in briefly for what everyone deems a possession. Yamanaka Ino and Akimichi Chouji were looked at for being unconscious for part of the time without the cause being known. You've already seen Nara Shikamaru" she answered, picking up his chart and making a notation of some sort.

Naruto noted she didn't really believe that Kakashi had been possessed by anything due to her tone.

"And Akamaru was hospitalized too, he's doing a lot better" Kiba said from outside the door, carrying his partner who had a bandage around his middle, but looked a lot better. The puppy wagged his tail happily when he saw Naruto was awake.

"That's great, so Shikamaru and I are the only one's here?" he asked. Kiba nodded, "Yup, but Shikamaru's getting out today, he'll have to come back in a couple days to get a check-up though" the dog user replied.

"Great, so I'm the only one stuck here" Naruto said in exasperation. "It's not so bad, besides, you're getting a month's vacation when you get out" Kiba said. Naruto's eyes widened, "No, I have to train and go on missions and…" he was cut off by the nurse.

"If you train and injure yourself you might not recover from it and no longer be able to be a ninja. It's only a month and you will be training a bit to keep your body from healing too stiffly and limiting your movements" she told him.

Naruto glared at her a bit, "Fine" he finally said childishly. Kiba rolled his eyes, "Well, I'm actually here to ask if you're up for visitors, Shikamaru said you were up and Hinata was back for a check-up so my team's here" Kiba said.

Naruto's face immediately lit up and he would have nodded eagerly, stopped once again by the technique immobilizing his head.

"Yeah, can they come now?" he asked. Kiba laughed and set Akamaru on the ground, "I'll go get them and be right back" he said.

When Kiba left the room Akamaru immediately climbed up onto the chair, it was a bit difficult, he seemed to still be sore from his injury, but he managed.

"So how's it going Akamaru?" Naruto asked. Akamaru gave a series of barks and then it was silent for a moment.

"Oh yeah, I don't speak dog" Naruto said in realization. Akamaru gave something akin to a groan and lay down on the chair, covering his nose with his paws.

"I see you're up Naruto" Kurenai said as she entered the room. The nurse finished up by scribbling one last thing down on his medical chart and left, reminding the group that visiting hours ended in three hours.

"Yeah, so all of you are okay, you're gonna be fine right Hinata-chan?" Naruto asked, looking at the suddenly blushing Hyuuga heiress. "I'm going to be fine Naruto-kun" she said quietly, poking her fingers together nervously. "That's great" Naruto said happily. The next moment Hinata fainted. Kiba caught her, a smirk on his face.

"Is she still recovering?" Naruto asked in concern. "Yeah something like that Naruto, I should get her home, I'll see you later Naruto" Kurenai said, taking Hinata from Kiba and carrying her female student out the door.

The tone with which she said it worried Naruto, making him think she was angry at him for some reason.

"So Shikamaru doesn't remember?" Naruto asked when the two were gone, deciding to ignore the threatening sound to the genjutsu specialist's voice. Kiba shook his head,

"We were told not to say anything to him. If he remembers on his own then fine, but otherwise I guess he's better off not knowing" Kiba said with a shrug, unsure of why it had to be a secret as well.

"Wait, but he did a lot for us, does that mean I'm the only one getting credit?" Naruto asked in alarm.

Shino nodded, "However you are also going to be punished. Why? Because you placed yourself in a dangerous situation without back up, and did things without permission" Shino told him seriously.

Naruto frowned, "But that's totally unfair, Shikamaru was really important to this mission, I probably would have died had he not shown up" he said, completely ignoring Shino.

"Yeah, well, it's not our call, it's Kakashi-sensei's. Kurenai-sensei and Asuma-sensei are also making suggestions to punish you" Kiba told him.

"Aww man" Naruto whined. Kiba started laughing at his misfortune, "Well, I have to get home and have my sister check Akamaru's injury and get his bandages changed so bye" Kiba said, picking his now sleeping puppy up and carrying him from the room with Shino following close behind.

Naruto ranted silently to himself before slowly falling into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Thanks for Reading

Please Review


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: Naruto = not mine

* * *

_Last Time_

_"Yeah, well, it's not our call, it's Kakashi-sensei's. Kurenai-sensei and Asuma-sensei are also making suggestions to punish you" Kiba told him._

_"Aww man" Naruto whined. Kiba started laughing at his misfortune, "Well, I have to get home and have my sister check Akamaru's injury and get his bandages changed so bye" Kiba said, picking his now sleeping puppy up and carrying him from the room with Shino following close behind._

_Naruto ranted silently to himself before slowly falling into a dreamless sleep._

* * *

Two days later Naruto was allowed to leave the hospital, much to his relief. The doctors had been able to deal with the injuries on his throat and chest enough that no damage would be caused if Naruto was up and around, well, as long as he didn't do anything incredibly stupid. His team had jokingly said that they should keep him locked up for a lot longer because the likelihood of Naruto doing something stupid was a sure thing. Naruto had promised himself that he would design a new prank especially for them.

"Move faster teme" Naruto growled, cheeks slightly red with embarrassment as he was carried through Konoha on his teammate's back, earning looks from many of the villagers. "I would if I could, you should stop eating all that ramen, you weigh too much" Sasuke shot back in irritation.

"Don't talk badly about ramen, I'll have to kick your ass" Naruto growled. "Then you should just walk home if you have the ability to kick my ass, hell, if you had the ability to kick my ass you should have done so during our sparring matches a long time ago instead of ending up on the ground" Sasuke argued.

"Now boys, get along" Kakashi reprimanded lightly, smiling at them from over the top of his book. Both Sasuke and Naruto shot him a glare which he ignored.

"You're just scared Sasuke won't be able to move for tomorrow's training" Naruto muttered jealously, being put on bed rest for the next week and then a light training regimen after that. "We're not having training tomorrow" Kakashi said, earning surprised looks from his three students.

"Naruto has the month off for recovery, and I'm giving you all three days of rest before starting training again. Besides Naruto, you'll be training with the team still, just not as rigorously until the doctor says it's okay" Kakashi told him.

Naruto yawned widely a moment later and shifted, nearly making Sasuke drop him. "Kakashi, you carry the dobe" Sasuke said in irritation, trying to glare back at his teammate.

"Now Sasuke, just think of it as a teamwork building exercise" their teacher said cheerfully back.

"Dobe, do not fall asleep on my back" Sasuke ordered a few minutes later when Naruto had gone unnaturally quiet. "But you're comfortable" Naruto muttered, nearly asleep despite the annoyed tone to Sasuke's voice.

Finally they reached the apartment and Kakashi waited as Sasuke got the door unlocked clumsily, having to deal with the blonde still on his back. Kakashi ignored the angry glare that the Uchiha shot him and pushed open the door, leading the Uchiha into the apartment. Sasuke muttered something about lazy jounin before making his way inside. Sakura followed a moment later.

Naruto woke with a start as Sasuke dumped him roughly onto his bed, having dozed off despite the warning. "Hey, what gives, I'm injured here" Naruto growled sleepily. "Whatever, you have visitors" Sasuke told him.

Naruto blinked in the darkness of the apartment and suddenly the lights snapped on. He winced in slight pain, snapping his eyes closed. Slowly he opened them, getting used to the brightness.

His face lit up, "Hey, you're all visiting" Naruto said happily.

"Yeah, not to see you though, we want to know what happened" Ino said, sitting on Naruto's counter which was quite far away from the bed, but considering the apartment wasn't that big this many people had trouble fitting in it. "What do you mean? You were all there" Naruto said in confusion. "So? We weren't inside the village with you" Kiba reminded.

Naruto yawned, "Can't this wait?" he asked, still very tired. "No, it can't, actually we need to finish our mission report, and you're the one with all the information" Asuma said, folding his arms and looking at Naruto expectantly.

"Fine, the spirit was a guy who studied medicine like five hundred years ago. He went all psycho when he didn't get an apprenticeship to the only doctor in the town and started testing people's reactions to pain by torturing them. Some woman who I think just wanted to mess with magic summoned him and he killed the entire village there at the time" Naruto started.

"He meant what happened with you, not the ghost" Sasuke said, rolling his eyes. "Spirit" Naruto corrected. "There's a difference?" Kurenai asked, intrigued. Naruto nodded, "Kyuubi says that that's what he was before he became a demon. It's like the first level or something. Ghosts are supposed to be images of a dead person, but have no abilities like the spirit did" he lectured.

"Anyway, after I summoned him he played with me for a little while and then I finally got away for a little and ran into a ghost that helped me a lot…" Naruto continued to explain the rest, substituting some ghost for Shikamaru's involvement and saying that Kyuubi was the only one who was distracting the spirit, not Shikamaru.

He'd tell his sensei what had actually happened after Shikamaru was gone. He didn't actually understand why Shikamaru was there if it was going to mean an incorrec mission report got filled out because of him.

"So what about the ritual, I don't understand the point of the parts" Asuma said in confusion. "I thought Shikamaru's dad knew a lot about the ritual" Naruto said with a frown. "He does, but he's been drunk for the past several days, or in his lab, or both which really isn't that safe" Shikamaru told him, confused about his father's behavior.

Off in the distance they heard an explosion and Shikamaru sighed, "Idiot" he muttered. "Shouldn't you go check on him?" Naruto asked, trying to get the boy out so he could correct the earlier report. Shikamaru shook his head, "My mom locked up all the dangerous chemicals, he'll be fine. My mom's there too, she'll take care of it" he explained.

"Fine, the oil was supposed to be a portal of some sort, the small stone on the ceiling was to make the spirit's energy resonate inside of it until it could come into our world" Naruto started, only to be cut off by Sasuke, "You know what resonate means?" he asked, eyebrow raised in surprise to amplify the surprise his voice conveyed.

Naruto glared, "Anyway, after the spirit…" he was cut off again, this time by Ino, "I knew it, he doesn't know what it means" she laughed, soon joined by several others. Naruto, who was still lying down, rolled onto his side carefully to face the wall, turning away from all of them.

"If you're going to make fun of me leave" he said grumpily, pouting. "Sorry, continue" Chouji said, trying to stop his laughter.

Naruto slowly turned and looked at them all suspiciously before continuing reluctantly. "The candles did what Shikamaru said, they summoned dark energy. The seal on the floor had the spirit's name somewhere in it so it was made for him. Wait, did you burn down the house when you were done?" Naruto asked, suddenly remembering something Kyuubi had told him.

"Yes, Gai told us that Nara-sama said that it was best if the ritual couldn't be made again, and was very certain that the spirit was gone for now because nobody died in the village since you were the only one inside" Kakashi assured him.

"Good" Naruto said in relief, "Well, the necklace, the bracelet and the All Seeing Demon Eye were just to ward off the spirit and they gave a little extra power when summoning it just in case. After the ritual they acted as a deterrent, and no I don't know what that means" Naruto cut his explanation off when he saw Kiba opening his mouth.

"The coins were an offering, like I said" he finished.

"Well, I think that's all for now, you should probably go to sleep and if we have any more questions we'll hold off until tomorrow" Kakashi told him, herding Sasuke out, despite the Uchiha's best efforts to glare a hole in the man's head.

The rest of the group left, Asuma stopping outside the doorway and turning to him. "As to your punishment, Kakashi let me decide, and you won't like it" he said with a smirk and left.

Naruto would have been slightly afraid, had he not fallen asleep a moment before Asuma had started talking due to exhaustion.

Three hours later he saw a spray of blood and woke up screaming.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you for everyone who stuck with my story until the end. I set this one up for a sequel and the votes are in with Doppelganger as the winner. I would have kept it up the poll for longer but I really wanted to get started as soon as I could, hopefully get a few chapters out before I go back to college in September.

As always, please review.


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